


To Be Alone With You

by lonelygoblin



Category: The Dolan Twins, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pining, i have no excuses for this, please don’t use this as a survival guide, the most tropical place i’ve ever been is florida, unhealthily codependent relationships, wildly inaccurate descriptions of tropical islands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-19 02:08:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17592656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelygoblin/pseuds/lonelygoblin
Summary: After their plane crashes in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Ethan and Grayson are left abandoned on a deserted tropical island. They have to work together to survive, facing not only the challenges the island presents, but their own increasingly undeniable feelings for each other as well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While this fic is for the most part pretty benign, it tackles some difficult topics (plane crashes, off-screen death, the psychological impact of being trapped on a deserted island etc), so just wanted to make sure everyone takes caution in case this is distressing to anyone. If you guys like this let me know, I will be updating (hopefully) next Wednesday!

The first sign that something was wrong was when Grayson unexpectedly woke up.

It was hour 7 on their non-stop 15 hour flight to Manila, Philippines, and the lights of the cabin had been dimmed. Ethan was dosing opposite Grayson, mouth open, snoring slightly. In his sleep he had entwined their legs under the table, to the point where Grayson would have to be careful about extricating himself without waking Ethan.

While this was marginally irritating, Grayson also found the sight in front of him endearing, and he smiled as he took several covert pictures of his brother to be posted to snapchat when they had landed.

Grayson had also been asleep, but had woken up from a jolt of the airplane. They were flying in a private jet - something they had only done a couple of times before, and it still felt strange to have the entire aircraft to themselves. He couldn’t see the co-pilot, who had been acting as their stewardess, anywhere near them.

It was then that the engine blew.

Suddenly, the airplane gave a great jolt, shaking both of them in their seats. The lights flickered on and the oxygen masks dropped down from the panel above their heads. There was a loud roaring noise coming from somewhere outside the plane. Grayson was frozen in shock at what was happening - he barely heard the pilot over the PA saying that they would have to make an emergency landing over the icy terror that had settled over him.

Ethan was awake now, and clearly freaking out - he hastily pulled the mask in front of him over his face. He then turned to Grayson and nudged his legs aggressively, signalling for Grayson to do the same. When this didn’t spur Grayson into action, Ethan quickly leaned over in his seat, and determinedly pulled Grayson’s mask onto him - this finally pulled Grayson back to the present.

“Gray! What’s happening?”, Ethan’s muffled voice shouted.

“I don’t know! I think the engine may have broken down!”, Grayson yelled back, gripping onto his armrest tightly. His ears were blocked because of their rapid descent, and his stomach felt as if it were up near his throat.

The rest was a blur - Grayson remembered a sudden jerk and a rushing of sound, he remembered his head hitting against the side of the plane - hard. He remembered Ethan shouting at him, tugging him out of his seat.

Suddenly there was water all around, and Grayson was being pulled towards the edge of the airplane. He blinked blearily, and saw Ethan frantically pulling him out of the plane which must have crash landed - there was a gaping hole in the side.

The plane was filled almost entirely with water by the time they had wrestled their way to the giant hole. Grayson remembers thinking it was strange that they couldn’t see either of the pilots near them. After swimming out of the hole, Ethan still firmly gripping his hand, they pushed away from the plane, which was sinking quick.

The brothers watched in muted horror as the plane disappeared from sight. There was no one else around them - though there were several bags and bits of the plane bobbing in the water. Ethan let go of Grayson, looking at Grayson with concern.

“Gray - you’re bleeding.”

Grayson lifted his hand up and touched the sore spot on his forehead, looking at his fingers and, sure enough, his fingers were bloody. He hadn’t even noticed the pain in his head until that moment, or the sting of the seawater on his forehead.

Grayson looked around them - and saw the outline of an island far off to their right.

“Ethan, we have to try to get to that island.” Grayson was surprised by how calm his voice sounded, considering how very not-calm he was currently feeling. His head throbbed.

Ethan turned his head to look at where Grayson was gesturing towards, and nodded his head.

“Yeah. Let’s do that.”

Grayson could see that Ethan was as shell shocked as he himself was, and something about seeing that fear in his twins’ face spurred him into action.

“We have to try and take as much of this stuff as we can with us - it might be useful if this island is deserted.”

Ethan just nodded again and grabbed two backpacks near to him - he only recognised one of them, so one must have belonged to one of the pilots. Grayson took hold of a suitcase he saw next to him, and a smaller black suitcase next to him.

The twins started to slowly swim towards the far off shore, awkwardly trying to stay afloat while dragging their cargo along with them.

They had to keep taking pauses every 5 or so minutes, as Grayson was occasionally hit by a wave of nausea and disorientation from his head wound. Every time this happened, Ethan would stay close and watch Grayson with concern, which irritated Grayson enough to want to keep going.

After what felt like hours of drudgery, they got close enough to the shoreline to be able to stand on the sandy bottom. They stepped carefully, mindful of any rocks they saw. When they had finally fully emerged from the water, Ethan collapsed onto the damp sand, sitting down. He deliberately put his hands over his face and screamed loudly.

In a daze, Grayson sat beside his brother, shoulder to shoulder. He ignored Ethan’s frustrated shouting, and looked back over the water, towards where the plane had landed. If he hadn’t been looking for it, he probably wouldn’t have spotted it at all - the plane had completely disappeared from sight, as if it had never existed.

The only things that remained were the floating scrap metal they hadn’t collected, along with a few bobbing items they had missed.

This must be an out of body experience - or a bad dream, Grayson thought. It couldn't be real that he was sitting here, on a warm sandy beach, surrounded by palm trees and smooth rocks, after his plane had just gone down in smoke. It had happened so quickly he had barely had time to process what was happening.

Ethan had seemingly finally calmed, and dropped his hands to his bent knees. He turned to Grayson, “The pilots, they - I can’t see them, so they must have died.” His voice was hoarse and it shook slightly as he spoke.

“Ye- yeah, E. I know.”

Grayson thought in horror of the two pilots - they hadn’t interacted much beyond being introduced, and the copilot bringing them food and drinks, but it still felt like a pit in his stomach to think about those lost lives.

Grayson rubbed his face, thinking hard about what to do. How could they get help? He suddenly remembered his phone, and he frantically reached into his pocket, taking it out. His heart sank when he saw that at some point amidst the chaos, he must have smashed his phone, because there were several deep spider-web cracks along it.

He tried turning it on, but it was unresponsive. He barely managed to contain the need to scream. Ethan tried checking his phone too, but couldn’t find it, so he must have lost it somewhere in the water.

They had no way of calling for help.

"This cannot be happening," Ethan mumbled. Grayson found he agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment.

It was hard to guess the time, but Grayson supposed that it must have been around early afternoon when they finally got up from that sandy beach. They both took off their soaked clothes, leaving them to dry on a rock in the sunlight.

The warmth of the sun’s rays was enough to stop them from being cold, even though they were just in their underwear.

Grayson eyed their immediate surroundings.

“We should find some rocks or something, spell out SOS so that if they have rescue helicopters or whatever coming, they can find us.”

Ethan’s previous screaming had apparently tired him out, so he merely nodded and started looking for suitable rocks.

Grayson was surprised to find that most of the rocks were quite smooth, and he guessed that they were probably flint. He supposed that that boded well for them in case they needed to light a fire for the night, if they didn’t find any people nearby.

At this thought he froze - what if there were people on this island? He somehow hadn’t even properly considered the idea, because it seemed so remote, but it was a real possibility.

“E? Do you think there might be any people here? Like maybe this is a part of Hawaii or something?”

This seemed to bring Ethan out of his stupor, as he snorted while bent over, picking up another rock. He straightened out and looked at Grayson with incredulity, chuckling.

“You think we’re in Hawaii right now? That we’re going to wander a couple minutes into civilisation and eat poké bowls for lunch? Grayson, we’re in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! This is probably just a deserted island! It’s probably too small to be significant.”

He then gestured to the sea all around them, precariously holding onto his rock pile with one arm, “There’s nothing but this island around for probably hundreds of miles! We just have to wait for someone to come rescue us.”

Grayson bit back the instinctive angry retort he was going to hit back at him, and took a deep breath instead. Arguing with Ethan wouldn’t get them out of this situation, it would just rile them up even more than they already were. If they were going to get through this, they needed to work together.

He sighed eventually. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. C’mon, let's just make this SOS sign.”

It took them the better part of half an hour, but eventually they had created a large sign in the sand using the rocks they had found - he just hoped it would be enough to get them spotted.

They sat in silence once they were done, the faint breeze chilling their bodies slightly.

Ethan was the first to speak. “What are we going to do about water? And food? And shelter?”

Grayson locked eyes with his twin, noticing the genuine fear in his eyes. As usual, this kicked him into gear - there was something almost primal about his need to comfort Ethan when he was genuinely scared.

He stood up, dusting the sand off of himself. “First we should look through the bags for anything useful - then we’re going to need to head off into the jungle.” He gestured towards it.

He felt slight apprehension about leaving the relative safety of the beach, but the most likely place to find drinkable water was in there. He could see palm trees as well as some much larger tropical trees he couldn’t identify. With any luck, they might find some coconut trees.

The brothers started opening the bags they had left abandoned nearby. Grayson opened the larger suitcase he had carried with him - it was one of theirs, so he knew what was in it; some clothes which were currently quite damp, a book Ethan had thrown in, Ethan’s toiletries bag that had a toothbrush, a small travel sized container of toothpaste and sunscreen.

Grayson had a look through what Ethan had found - his bag was apparently a woman's, so he figured it must have been the copilots. It had some clothes, a waterlogged iPad that wouldn't turn on, a purse, a set of keys, and two books. However, in another pocket they found an almost full bottle of water and an empty bottle, as well as a somehow intact bag of Lays crisps and a single apple.

The brothers sighed in relief at this find - at least they had a day or so where they wouldn't have to worry about water and finding food. With any luck, the rescue teams would find them by then. After discussing it, they both drank a mouthful of water - but only that - and kept the rest for later.

The other unknown backpack was filled with much the same, some illegible meeting notes, a hoodie, an unopened chocolate bar, and another set of keys.

They then turned their attention to the small suitcase Grayson had carried. On closer inspection, the small black suitcase had the airline logo on it, and Grayson clicked it open. He nearly cried from joy when he saw what was inside.

There was a first aid kit, as well as what looked like some maintenance tools - a small hammer, a wrench, and a swiss army knife. The last item in particular made Grayson sigh in relief, and made Ethan let out a whoop of joy when he saw it.

Ethan sorted through the first aid kit, finding some standard gauze, plasters, disinfectant wipes, and a small pair of rounded off scissors. He turned to Grayson.

“Here, stand still, we should do something about the cut on your forehead.”

In the excitement of their find, Grayson had completely forgotten about the throbbing in his forehead, and dutifully stood still while Ethan carefully disinfected it, only wincing slightly, and choosing to not mention that the salt water had probably already disinfected it.

Next, Ethan took out some of the gauze and started wrapping it tightly around Grayson’s forehead and tying it off.

“How do I look?” Grayson smirked.

Ethan snorted, “Even more of a dumbass than usual.”

Grayson shoved him at this, and Ethan fell over chuckling.

Once they had dressed again, they decided to leave the less useful items on the beach for now to dry off, and took the two damp backpacks with the most useful items with them.

With that, they headed off into the jungle. It started off very sparse, with just a couple of tall palm trees, but the further they walked, the thicker the trees became, and the ground was eventually covered in grass and foliage.

They heard a couple of hoots from various birds, but didn’t see any animals, though they were both keeping a keen eye out for any other dangerous creatures on the ground or in the trees.

After half an hour of walking they were seeing more and more tall trees, as well as some bamboo, some plants with very large leaves. Grayson tried to remember every survival video he had ever watched and tried to think of how they could use the environment to their advantage - a lot of this stuff could come in very useful.

Eventually they settled on returning slightly to be close to the beach in case rescue came. It worried Grayson that they hadn’t found a solid source of water, though they could probably get some water from the bamboo nearby, and use the large leaves of various plants to catch any rainfall.

After finding a suitable spot where they set up a very primitive shelter, Grayson was beginning to worry about lighting fires. He knew the theory of it, and had basically managed it when they had shot their survival video, but it was going to be hard to find any dry wood here, and lighting it on fire was another challenge. The magnesium strip he had used previously was obviously much easier to use and more efficient than just flint rocks.

Considering how dark it was already, they decided that it would have to be a problem they tackled tomorrow, as neither was feeling up for wandering around in the dark trying to find the resources they would need. Thankfully, it was still pretty warm, and it didn’t seem like it was going to start raining any time soon.

They had originally laid out two separate spots for the two of them to sleep in, but by unspoken agreement, they both ended up sleeping up against each other, pulling on the spare hoodies they had found in the bags.

Ethan had ended up pressed against Grayson’s back, and after a few moments he shuffled slightly and put an arm around Grayson’s waist. Grayson just wriggled slightly closer to Ethan and shut his eyes. Ethan wasn’t usually the one to initiate cuddling, which they only very rarely did anyway, but he was happy for the extra comfort, so he wasn’t complaining.

Despite their vulnerability on the ground, both fell asleep easily, the mental and physical exhaustion of the day catching up to them. Neither twin dreamt that night.

 

***

 

Grayson blinked blearily as he slowly roused into consciousness. The sun shone through some gaps in the trees above, illuminating the forest ground. Memories of the previous day all came flooding back in an instant; the plane crash, the swim to the shore, wandering through the jungle.

Grayson tried to turn around to survey the area around them, but apparently Ethan had kept his hold over Grayson during the night, and their legs were now intermingled as well. Grayson considered waking up Ethan and properly starting their day, but his bone-deep exhaustion made him just lie back and rest for a few more minutes, trying to pretend that this wasn’t happening.

After half an hour of lazily dozing, Grayson finally disentangled himself from Ethan to go pee. By the time he had made his way back, Ethan was propped up, rubbing at his eyes.

“You left”, he sleepily muttered accusingly, drool on his cheek, “didn’t know where you had gone.”

“Just went to take a piss, sorry I didn’t leave you a note carved into the bark”, Grayson joked.

Ethan just mumbled something unintelligible and rested his head back on the ground, eyes closed.

Grayson took this time to closer survey the area, trying to find any fruit trees, unable to find anything that looked edible. He figured they might have more luck looking along the shore, where there’s more sunlight. He walked over to Ethan and nudged him with his shoe.

“C’mon, get up, we should head back to the beach to see if anyone’s come to rescue us.”

At this, Ethan’s eyes popped open and he sat up, stretching. They eventually packed up their bags again, and had another healthy swig of water each. Grayson was worried to see that there was less than a quarter of the water left - they would have to find some water today, and then find a way to boil it or risk dehydration.

After half an hour of walking, they found their way back to the beach where they had set up their SOS sign. It was obvious pretty quick that no one had come during the night, and his heart sank a little. The twins shared a look, and then started wordlessly sorting through the items they had left there the previous day, putting the now dry items into one of the suitcases and leaving it near a tree that would provide cover for it in case it rained.

They then set about walking along the beach, keeping to the cover the trees provided. Despite it only being the morning, the sun was already heating up the island, and Grayson had to wipe his forehead of excess sweat.

The scenery remained much the same for half an hour, until Ethan suddenly threw his arms out to stop Grayson, accidentally punching him in the arm.

“Bananas! Grayson, look!”

Grayson had just opened his mouth to scold Ethan, but then immediately stopped to look at where Ethan was pointing. Sure enough, close to the edge of the beach was a banana tree with light green bananas growing on it.

They raced to the tree, pulling off the most ripe looking bunches, putting them into their backpacks.

They decided to take a quick break to eat the apple they had found the day before, Ethan carefully eating one half before passing it to Grayson. They tested one of the bananas, and while it wasn’t fully ripe, it tasted pretty decent, and it was a relief to know that they would have at least one stable source of food for however long they were here.

This area of the beach was considerably rockier than the one they had landed on, which was a real relief considering how sharp some of the rocks look. As Grayson tried to identify what type of rock they were, he spotted a strange one that had a protruding shape which looked like a half moon.

Grayson went up to have a closer look - there was a significant divot in the centre of the semi circle, and Grayson’s eyes widened.

“Ethan! Bring me the hammer and a sharp looking rock.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it!”

Ethan begrudgingly picked himself up off the sand and wandered over, picking up a large, flat rock the had a vaguely sharp looking edge.

“What are you gonna do with these?”

Grayson gestured towards the rock, “If we chisel off this part of the rock, it’ll work like a bowl, so if we find some water we can boil it like a cauldron and drink it!”

Ethan’s eyes lit up at this, and he gripped Grayson’s arm in excitement.

“That’s fucking genius, Gray! Okay, let me try.”

It was a painstaking process, and Grayson was worrying about how long it was taking. They took turns chipping away at the rock, having to resort to just using the hammer directly, and eventually managed to pry off the makeshift bowl. It must have taken an hour to do, but they were were both happy to have found a solution for their water problem - once they found some water.

Once they had done this, they decided to head back into the jungle to try and make a more sturdy shelter and fireplace for the night.

They gathered up more flint rocks that they found, attempting to sharpen them as they walked. They walked even further into the jungle than they had the day before, the trees taller and the dense foliage thicker - but they still hadn’t found any sign of a water source.

Grayson started to panic as the day wore on, a swelling feeling in the pit of his stomach. He could tell Ethan was tense as well - they had drunk the last of their water. After a quick conversation they decided that they would first build a shelter while they still had some energy, and would then continue looking for water afterwards.

Trying to assemble materials using only the swiss army knife and the sharp rocks they found was challenging - both soon had blistered hands which they bound with scraps they had made of the women's tank top they had found in the copilot’s bag, as it was too small for either of them to wear.

Eventually, they had gathered some sturdy logs, branches, and Ethan had pulled off several vines from the trees surrounding them. After several hours, they had two usable beds on the ground, with a primitive leaf roof similar to the one Grayson had created in their survival video.

Keeping themselves occupied like this, Grayson could almost pretend that they were just filming another survival video, this time on a tropical island. He could pretend that water and warm food was just a short trip away, his bed and shower waiting for him.

He wondered what their parents thought had happened to them, what their fans thought. They probably assumed that the twins were dead.

“Ethan?”

Ethan opened his eyes from where he was leaning against a tree with his eyes closed, taking a break.

“Yeah?”

Grayson swallowed down the lump of fear that had settled into his throat.

“Do - do you think someone’s coming to rescue us?”

Ethan eyed Grayson warily.

“I don’t know Gray. I hope so.”

“Do you think - mom and dad - do they think we’re dead?”

Ethan scrubbed his hands over his face wearily at this, leaving them there.

“I don’t know. Probably.” He replied quietly. He still didn’t look up.

Grayson was ashamed to feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He got up abruptly, mumbling something about wanting to piss, and wandered away from their campsite.

Once he had stumbled far enough away, he finally gave into the wave of panic and sadness that was threatening to swallow him whole. He choked out a sob, tears flowing down his face and neck, but he couldn’t stop the choking feeling.

He spared a thought to the fact that he was wasting precious fluids, and this just made him cry more, hysteria encroaching in.

He was so overcome with this panic attack that he hadn’t even heard Ethan approaching, and realised with a start he was there when Ethan crouched down beside him, putting a hand gently on his back.

Grayson blearily opened his eyes, and saw that Ethan was crying too. Without thinking about it, Grayson threw his arms around Ethan’s neck, pulling him close. Ethan came easily, wrapping his arms around Grayson’s waist.

Grayson shoved his face into the crook of Ethan’s neck, which smelled like sweat and sea salt. Ethan was now sobbing too, chin digging into Grayson’s back.

Grayson isn’t sure how long they stayed like that, but they remained hugging even once they had no more tears left. Grayson felt the warmth of his brother’s body, and had a moment of thankfulness that he had Ethan with him here. As shit as this situation was, going through this alone would have been 10 times as bad.

Grayson gently rubbed his hand along the back of Ethan’s neck.

“I’m glad we’re together, E. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Ethan chuckled slightly into Grayson’s shoulder.

“Yeah, me too, bro. Probably wouldn’t have even lasted a day without you and all your dumb survival knowledge.”

And just like that, the mood was lifted, and both brothers laughed as they pulled apart, unsteadily getting to their feet. They made their way back over to their shelter. They didn’t talk about it, but both were too tired to go looking for water - they would have to devote all of the next day to that.

It was getting dark even though it must have still been pretty early, but both twins just went to their respective beds, exhausted.

It took longer for Grayson to fall asleep that night. He was wearing a thick jumper, but there was a slight chill to the air, and he had to fold his arms tightly over his torso and stomach, curling in on himself.

The noises of the forest were the main thing keeping him awake, though. He couldn’t understand how he hadn’t noticed them before - probably just because of the absurdity of the situation. But now, it was all he could focus on. There was a persistent buzzing all around them, from either mosquitos or some other insects, though the twins had avoided being stung so far.

Every time the wind blew, the branches of the trees would creak loudly above them. Occasionally he would hear a bird squawking or flying overhead. Every time a twig snapped, Grayson worried about some predator getting close to them, and thought feebly that they should have built a fire to keep animals away.

It took a long time for sleep to take him.

 

***

 

It was early morning when he awoke. At first he wasn’t sure why he had woken up so suddenly, but then he picked up on the ambient white noise all around him, and felt a drop fall on his face. It was raining.

He jumped up instantly, shouting for Ethan, crawling out of his shelter and wandering around the forest.

The dripping wasn’t very heavy where they were due to the thick foliage above them, but where there were gaps, the rain came through.

Grayson let out a loud, happy shout of laughter, and called for Ethan again. When Ethan didn’t respond, he ran over to Ethan’s bed, smacking him hard on the leg to wake him up. As Ethan started to rouse, Grayson went to the pile of large leaves they had collected previously and got one, as well as the water bottles. He ran over to where the foliage was thinner, where the rain was trickling steadily, and with shaking hands created a funnel into the water bottle.

He stood there, impatiently waiting for the bottle to fill up. He noticed Ethan was now up, and he was looking at Gray with the same expression of joy. Ethan quickly grabbed a leaf and took the other water bottle from Grayson, finding another spot and similarly creating a funnel.

It must have taken 10 minutes to fill up the bottle - the instant it was full, Grayson capped it off and discarded it on the ground, now using the leaf to drink the water directly.

Grayson knew logically that it was probably just ordinary rainwater, but he could have sworn that it tasted sweet to him, and he gulped it down thankfully.

The twins spent a long time trying to drink up the water. Once Grayson decided he had probably had enough - he didn’t want to accidentally have too much and then puke it out, he ran over to their backpacks and took the makeshift stone bowl they had gotten the day before and the small black suitcase, which was lined with some kind of foil he hoped was waterproof on the inside.

He carefully placed both so that they would catch as much rainwater as possible, taking a step back to admire his work.

He hadn’t realised that Ethan was behind him - his back bumped into Ethan’s chest, but instead of pushing him away, which is what Grayson was expecting him to do, Ethan just wound his arms around Grayson in a one-sided hug, placing his chin on Grayson’s shoulder.

“I never thought I would be so happy to see rain”, Ethan joked.

Grayson just smiled, placing his arms over Ethan’s, leaning his head back against his brother and closed his eyes, feeling the steady warmth of Ethan’s chest and the occasionally cold drip of water on him.

He felt the most calm he’s felt this entire experience, and it was like he could breathe for the first time. They would get through this - the rescue teams may take a while to find them, but they would survive until then.

Eventually they decided to start venturing further into the woods - hopeful that with this recent rain they could uncover some kind of river or lake.

As the hours went by, the landscape continued to change the deeper they get, with new types of plants and trees appearing. Ethan shouted for Grayson from somewhere in front of him, and Grayson made his way towards his voice.

When Grayson finally spotted him, Ethan was crouched near some bushes, seemingly examining something. When he heared footsteps approaching, Ethan turned around, a wide smile on his face.

“We hit the jackpot! I found some berries!”

At this, Grayson ran over to Ethan, falling to his knees beside him, examining what Ethan was pointing out.

They looked like blueberries. Grayson picked one, and after a moment of hesitation, popped it into his mouth. The taste was more sour than he expected, but he was relatively sure they wouldn’t die from eating these.

They started picking the berries, ravenously eating them immediately, barely stopping to breathe. Once they’d had their fill, they pick as many as they can and store them in one of the socks they had found.

It was hard to make out anything this deep into the jungle, but Grayson supposed it must be getting dark soon. He analysed the trees near them, and spotted one that had both a lot of branches and thick vines growing on it.

He turned to look at Ethan, who was frowning down at the berry bush.

“E, I’m gonna climb up that tree”, he said, pointing at the one he spotted.

Ethan’s head whipped up at this, looking up at the tree.

“What? No way! You’ll lose your grip, dude! You could fall and die - it’s way too dangerous.”

Grayson sighed. “If I climb up, I can reach the top and see over the entire island, get an idea for how big it is, see if there’s any distinct areas, maybe a lake or something. It makes sense, and you know it.”

Ethan was now stood up, fuming.

“And why do you need to be the one to climb it? In case you’ve forgotten, you’ve got a head injury!”, he gestured towards the gauze still over Grayson’s forehead.

Grayson had in fact forgotten, but the arrogance in Ethan’s voice just made Grayson’s blood boil.

“I’m stronger than you! I work out more than you! All you do is play Fortnite in your room!”

Ethans lips thinned at this. “Fine, asshole, have at it. But if you fall, I’m going to find a way to resurrect you just so I can tell you ‘I told you so’!”, Ethan fumed.

Grayson took this as permission, and headed over to the tree, trying to calculate the easiest way up, and then steadily started to climb.

Despite his anger, Ethan appeared at the base of the tree, watching him warily while biting the nail of his thumb.

Grayson focused on the climb, carefully testing out each branch before putting his full weight on it. His arms were soon sore from gripping the vines in a death-grip, but he didn’t dare loosen his hold.

He didn’t look down.

The closer he got to the top, the thinner the branches got, and the more careful he had to be. He almost slipped on a branch that was damp, but managed to regain his footing. He didn’t hear the noise of alarm Ethan let out on the ground - his heartbeat was pounding too loud in his ears for him to hear.

While gripping onto several branches, Grayson was able to stick his head out enough to survey the island. He had been right about it getting dark soon, the sun was just setting in the west. Grayson could make out the shoreline where they had landed and placed their SOS signal - it was thankfully quite visible from up here, so it should also be easy to spot from a low flying plane or helicopter.

He then turned his gaze back towards the rest of the island - it sprawled out seemingly for miles, with some of the forested areas interrupted by what looked like mountains of stone. In the north, he could see an elevated part of the forest, and he thought he could maybe see just a glimpse of a waterfall.

After another minute, he slowly started making his way down the tree. The journey down was just as difficult as the journey up, and his hands were sore and blistered even through the makeshift hand protectors they had made previously.

He knew that he was getting closer to the ground, but it still surprised him when he heard Ethan’s voice say, “You can let go now”, from seemingly right next to him. He let out a sigh of relief and let go of the vine he was holding, hopping off the branch.

He staggered when he hit the ground, and Ethan quickly grabbed his arm, righting him. Grayson lay down on the ground, panting heavily. Ethan wordlessly passed him one of the water bottles, and he drank deeply from it.

“So, what did you see?”, Ethan inquired after giving Grayson a minute to rest. Grayson told him that they would probably need 2 days if they were to walk from the beach with the SOS sign to the other side of the island, though he didn’t know if that was true or not. He told Ethan about the mountains he saw on the other side, and then, finally, about the waterfall that he might have seen.

At this, Ethan lit up. “Wait, are you for real?” At Grayson’s nod, he hit Grayson’s arm repeatedly in excitement.

“We have to go Gray! That’s like, an unlimited water source! We can go back to camp now, and then set off tomorrow morning for the waterfall.”

Grayson frowned slightly. “That would take us over a day - what if the rescue comes tomorrow? We have some water now, so we should probably stay close to the shoreline.”

Ethan’s smile slightly dropped at this, and he looked at Grayson with an expression Grayson couldn’t decipher. Ethan broke their eye contact, looking down. He seemed to be having some kind of internal argument with himself, which puzzled Grayson - Ethan would usually talk to Grayson about anything that was making him feel conflicted.

Just as Grayson is about to ask him what was wrong, Ethan nodded, saying “Yeah, you’re right. Let's just scout the other part of the shoreline tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sure”, Grayson agreed, somewhat taken aback by how easy it was to persuade Ethan. Usually the kid’s so stubborn he would rather die than concede his point.

With nothing left to say, they started heading back towards their camp, Grayson picking up any dry-looking pieces of wood he could see, to potentially start a fire.

It was almost dark once they made it back, and Grayson immediately checked the containers they had left out. The stone bowl was full almost to the brim - that would be enough to fill probably an entire water bottle. Luckily, it seemed that the small black suitcase was in fact waterproof - this one wasn’t quite as full, but would still help.

Satisfied, Grayson then started placing some of the rocks they had with them in a circle to create a fireplace. He put as much dry foliage as he could find into a heap, and started working the flint to try and get a spark.

He was beginning to feel frustrated when 15 minutes went by and he had no luck, when suddenly one of the sparks seemed to catch. He excitedly tried to gently fan the fire, directing Ethan to bring some more dry plants.

Eventually, they have a small fire going. Grayson was pretty sure it wouldn’t last the night, but hopefully it should provide at least some smoke to deter mosquitos and wildlife.

Ethan had been surprisingly quiet since coming back, none of his usual mindless chatter. He had simply lain down on his bed close to the fire, facing away from Grayson.

Grayson sat near the fire for a while, staring into the flames. He knew he should go to sleep as well, but the prospect of spending another cold night on his hard bed wasn’t very appealing.

Instead, he sat by the fire, thinking about the indecipherable look on Ethan’s face earlier. The twins were, obviously, extremely close, and Grayson still believed that they’re closer than any other two people in the world.

Grayson can usually identify Ethan’s moods with reasonable ease, but there was something about that look that unnerved him. A look he hadn’t seen before. Grayson was so lost in thought that he had somehow missed Ethan turning around, and only realised Ethan was watching him when he cleared his throat loudly.

He had that look on his face again. Grayson felt like he probably knew what it was now. Loss of hope.

“I don’t think anyone’s coming for us, Gray”, he whispered, as if saying it loudly would solidify their fate.

Grayson felt numb. The cold ground suddenly didn’t seem very inviting, and he got up, heading towards Ethan’s bed. Ethan wordlessly made space for him, and Grayson lay down beside him. Ethan wrapped his arms around Grayson, pulling him close, and Grayson buried his head into Ethan’s chest. He took a couple of deep, calming breaths.

He didn’t know how long they lay there like that, curled towards each other. Grayson focused on the steady beating of Ethan’s heart. Something about that steady rhythm solidified his resolve.

He lifted his head up, eye to eye with Ethan, who was still watching him wearily.

“You can’t give up. You just can’t - I won’t let you. Tomorrow morning we’re going to head back to the beach, and we’re going to keep ourselves busy. We’re going to keep an ear out for any planes or helicopters. We’re going to survive, and we’re going to be rescued.”

Grayson said the last bit with such conviction that Ethan wanted to believe him, wanted to belong to the Church of Grayson, where salvation was guaranteed. He wanted to believe that help was coming, that he would see his friends and family again. He wanted to film another video. He felt like he was falling into an abyss, and the longer he fell, the less light there was to see. He was worried what would happen when he hit the bottom.

The longer he stared into Grayson’s hazel-brown eyes, the deeper he fell, and the more he wanted to believe.

Grayson watched apprehensively as Ethan sorted through whatever emotions he was dealing with. It hurt to be outside of this struggle, that there was this wall in Ethan’s mind he couldn’t see over. That had never really happened before, and it left Grayson scared. He wanted desperately to help, but felt sure that any interruption from him would just annoy Ethan, and make him stop trying. For whatever reason, he knew that he had to leave Ethan be. There are some battles you have to face yourself. He just had to hope Ethan would come out the other side without that hopeless expression.

They lay in silence. Against all odds, Grayson was on the verge of falling asleep when he felt Ethan move slightly.

Blinking open his eyes, Grayson saw that the look was gone from Ethan’s face, and all that was left was tiredness.

“You’re right Gray, we shouldn’t give up hope. We’ll get through this, we’ll get home.”

Ethan gave him a small genuine smile, and he then started to turn around.

“Now spoon me and go to sleep.”

Grayson almost let out a bark of laughter at this, but something about the situation stopped him from poking fun at Ethan.

Instead, he just smiled and dutifully wound his arms around Ethan, enveloping him completely. He closed his eyes and sleep took him almost instantly.

 

***

  
By morning, the mood had completely shifted, and Grayson felt lighter somehow. They even managed to crack a couple of jokes, the reflexive laughter feeling like a breath of fresh air. They managed to pack away their things quickly, transferring the water in the containers to their bottles.

The walk back to the beach was relatively uneventful, except for Grayson tripping on a tree root and almost smacking his head directly on a tree trunk in front of him, only managing to dodge at the last second.

This sight sent Ethan into hysterics, and it was almost a full minute before he calmed down, at which point Grayson started involuntarily cracking up, which led to a vicious cycle of Ethan being sent into a fresh round of laughter.

By the time they had gotten themselves under control, Grayson’s cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. It had been a while since he’d seen that expression of pure joy on Ethan’s face, and he’d almost managed to convince himself he’d forgotten how radiant it made Ethan look.

As they continued wandering back, they walked almost shoulder to shoulder, hands occasionally brushing. Grayson’s chest tightened with the desire to link hands, but he shoved the thought out of his mind almost as quick as it had come.

This was a good moment, and he wouldn’t push his luck. This was enough.

This would have to be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you’re happy in a dream…does that count? The happiness – does it count? — Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
> 
> I drive around the streets  
> an inch away from weeping,  
> ashamed of my sentimentality and  
> possible love. — Charles Bukowski

Having made their way back onto the beach, Grayson tried to hide his disappointment that it was much the same as they had left it, the tides having displaced a few of their stones, but their sign was as readable as ever.

No one had come to rescue them yet. Grayson tried to ignore the uneasiness he was feeling. He realised that they should probably start keeping count of the days - how long had they been here already? Three days? Four?

Ethan wandered ahead of him, going to the water’s edge, seemingly looking for something. It was only then that Grayson noticed the strange shine coming from the water. Frowning, he followed Ethan.

As he got closer, and the light from whatever it was shifted and moved, he realised what it was - some of the metal from the plane. The large sheets of metal must have come off during the crash and been carried to the island by the tides. After exchanging a look with Ethan, the twins started hauling the metal onto the beach.

Some pieces were small, barely larger than a book, but a couple were big enough that it required both twins to carefully heave it out, careful of the sharp edges. After a quarter of an hour, they had collected all the scrap metal they could see, as well as some clothes that must have also been washed ashore.

This was the first sighting they’d had of the plane, the first reminder that they really had crash landed here, and this wasn’t some strange fever dream. Grayson couldn't help but be thankful that there was still no sign of the bodies of the pilots.

Grayson started examining the metal while Ethan laid the clothes and fabric out to dry. Grayson tested the metal, trying to bend it. There seemed to be two different materials, one thinner and more fragile, and one unwieldy. He couldn’t help but think that the smaller pieces of the stronger metal could probably be used as knives or even machetes, if they were able to sharpen them slightly and make it safe to hold.

Putting the metal back down, Grayson looked over to see what Ethan was doing, finding him sitting on the sand, looking out at the water.

Grayson wandered over to him, sitting down beside him. The sand was warm beneath him, sun warming his skin. There was a faint breeze that ruffled his hair, the salty smell of the ocean hitting him gently. Ethan was the first to speak.

“You know, if circumstances were different, this would actually be quite nice. Relaxing,” he squinted at Grayson, small smile on his face.

Grayson chuckled at this. He agreed with Ethan's sentiment, though he didn't particularly want to vocalise that feeling. Instead, he eventually sarcastically retorted, “Yeah, a nice beach holiday, struggling to survive every day.”

Ethan nudged Grayson with his shoulder, smile widening. “I thought you liked this whole survival thing - why else do you watch all those stupid survival videos?”

Grayson raised his eyebrows at this. “You weren’t calling them stupid when they were saving our asses out here.” Ethan just shook his head slight, looking off into the distance.

“That’s such an exaggeration of the situation, Grayson.”

He knew Ethan was joking, but Grayson wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he just stayed silent. He shifted his toes, burying them under the warm sand.

Once they got up, they decided to explore the other side of the beach, and headed off. The rays of the sun were now hotter than ever, beating down the back of Grayson’s neck. The walk was otherwise quite uneventful, with nothing really of interest to be found - that is, until Grayson spotted it.

In a moment of delusion, he wondered if it was a mirage, if his dehydrated, overheating brain was playing tricks on him. But the longer he looked, the more sure he was of what he was seeing.

“Coconuts,” he muttered.

Ethan turned to look at him in confusion. “What?”

“Coconuts,” Grayson repeated louder and more sure, pointing to the miracle fruit.

The twins shared a look of glee and ran to the trees. Ethan instantly started trying to climb the closest tree, only managing to shake the tree enough that one of the coconuts fell to the ground.

They scrambled to get it, bickering about how best to open it, until eventually Grayson carefully used the swiss army knife to punch a small hole through it. The instant he succeeded, he drank deeply from it, wanting to cry with relief. He gasped loudly, passing it to Ethan who drank from it with the same level of enthusiasm.

When the laughter came this time, they both gave in to it. They spend a lot time talking then, Grayson laughing at Ethan’s attempts to cut open the drained coconut to get to the white coconut meat inside, Ethan snapping at him, and then subsequently laughing at Grayson who similarly struggled with it.

They spend the hours laying on the beach in the shade, drinking and then eating from the coconuts in turn, and they only headed back to the shelter when the sun began to set.

That night, Grayson started a calendar on the back of one of the pages of meeting notes they had found, creating tally marks in pencil.

They spent much of the rest of the week in this fashion - sticking close to the beach, but exploring the surrounding areas, collecting water when it rained, finding and then trying to memorise where they found food.

It was at the end of their second week on the island, as Grayson marked another neat tally mark before bed, fire roaring, that Ethan next tried to have a serious conversation with Grayson.

“Gray… I think we need to start thinking long term.”

Grayson frowned slightly at this.

“What do you mean?”

Ethan huffed. “I mean, I think we need to accept that help isn’t coming, and start acting like it.”

Grayson frowned deeper, annoyed. Hadn’t they already discussed this, and decided to be optimistic?

“Ethan. Don’t say that, man,” he snapped.

Ethan waved his arms around in annoyance. “We don’t have to give up all hope! But you have to be realistic! If they're looking for us, why haven’t they found us yet? It could take them a long fucking time to find us, especially if they don’t know where our plane crashed!” Ethan seethed, annoyance evident on his face.

Grayson was furious at this point, almost surprising himself with his anger. “You think I don’t know that?!”

His hands were shaking, pent up anxiety being brought to the surface. He was annoyed at Ethan for his defeatist attitude. He was annoyed that they hadn’t found any water. That every day was a struggle to make sure they would make it to the next. But most of all, he was annoyed that they were stuck here, on this godforsaken island, with no hope of being rescued.

Grayson sighed. It was unfair of him to take his emotions out on his brother, who hadn’t been trying to provoke him.

"Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to yell, it’s just. I hate that we’re stuck here.”

Ethan eyed him warily, but nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it really sucks. But, y’know, there’s not much we can do about it, except accept it. Just… try to survive.”

“You’re right,” Grayson admitted begrudgingly. “So… what do we do?”

Ethan pondered this for a while, annoyance apparently forgotten.

“Well, first, I think we have to explore the whole island, or at least as much of it as we can. We’ve found quite a few food places, but we still need to find a stable source of water.”

Grayson nodded at this. They had been surviving off of rainwater all this time, but Grayson supposed that this must be monsoon season, and that they couldn’t rely on it consistently raining.

“Okay, so let's start travelling around, not heading back to the shelter at night - we’ll have to sleep wherever we can,” Grayson proposed.

Ethan agreed with this, so they started sorting through their items, deciding what to leave here and what to take with them.

Once they had agreed on this, they headed off to bed. Grayson didn’t hesitate anymore before following Ethan to his bed, and laying down beside him. They hadn’t talked about this particular arrangement they had, and Grayson wasn’t sure what Ethan thought of it.

Was it just a survival thing for him - a desire to keep warm during the nights? A way to keep safe against any potential predators? Grayson was too ashamed to admit to even himself that it was more than that for him. Physical touch grounded him, providing comfort during the dark nights, bringing him out of his thoughts. He vehemently ignored the fact that had he been here with anyone else, any of their friends, or family, or even a stranger, he wouldn’t have needed or particularly wanted this.

There was something about the fact that it was Ethan that made him want to sleep close to his side, feeling the warmth of his skin. At times, Ethan would drive him crazy, but he also couldn’t live without him. And that scared him.

Perhaps he was a coward for not facing what this meant. He decided he didn’t care. He turned over on his side, so that he was facing Ethan’s back, Ethan’s hair faintly brushing his face.

He closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

 

***

 

The next morning, they started on their little expedition.

It was slow going even though they walked for hours, taking only a few breaks. They didn’t permit themselves to drink much water, as they were running very low again.

The trek was more challenging than expected, though Grayson supposed that it made sense considering how big their sudden change in lifestyle was. A lack of proper food and water was making them weaker, so they got tired quicker. That combined with the humidity of the island made travelling difficult.

When by the end of the day they still hadn’t found any water, they hurriedly set up a shelter, barely doing more than clearing the ground, and fell asleep immediately from exhaustion.

They finished the last of their water in the morning, and set out again.

It felt like they were making even slower progress, stumbling often, having to take long breaks, weariness starting to set in.

Grayson started to get a faint headache at the crown of his head, and it didn't go away as the hours went by.

It was hard to keep track of where they were, both of them sweating, panting, barely able to think with the pounding in their heads.

They had to stop for the day much sooner than Grayson would have liked, but he knew they couldn’t keep going on at this rate - they would probably collapse from overexertion.

Both of them were irritable, sniping at each other over stupid things.

It didn’t rain that night.

It didn’t rain in the morning either.

Grayson had no idea what time it was. His mouth was so dry it hurt to move his tongue, and his headache had only gotten worse.

They didn’t speak at all that day, the act of forming words too exhausting to contemplate. They didn’t find any water that day, though that was probably because the twins were having trouble remembering the layout of the island, and were possibly accidentally doubling back over areas they’d already been.

The next day, Grayson found he couldn’t focus on their surroundings, and instead his mind kept jumping from thought to thought, seemingly randomly.

The previous Christmas with their family, smiling around a dinner table. When him and Ethan had first moved to LA, excitement buzzing in their veins. A boy from their school who had bullied the twins, the cutting words he had said to them. Swimming with Cameron and Ethan. Ethan singing in the shower. Meeting fans. The first and only time he had kissed a boy, a nameless guy with a wide smile at a party they had been invited to. The sun spilling into his room in the morning.

He had zoned out so much that Grayson wasn’t paying attention to where he was walking, so when he tripped over a tree root, he fell hard.

Normally, this wouldn’t have phased him at all, beyond embarrassment, but he groaned in pain, unable to get up from the hard earth.

It was only when he put his hands in front of him to push himself up that he noticed it - the ground was wet.

His hand sank almost entirely into the mud, with how much water there was.

Grayson wasn’t able to process this beyond slight befuddlement.

“Gray? You okay?” He could hear Ethan noisily approaching.

Grayson just turned around to face him, wordlessly cupping some of the dirty water in his hand, letting it fall down for Ethan to see.

Ethan took a second to react. “Holy shit, Gray! You found water!” his voice croaked.

Grayson scrambled up, and they examined the ground closely, eventually following the trail of the water. It widened and deepened as they walked, becoming a slow, steady stream.

Eventually, Grayson became aware of a low rushing noise somewhere in the distance, and the more they walked, the closer it got. He and Ethan shared a look, Ethan grinning almost deliriously. They moved slightly faster towards the noise, dodging trees and tripping in their carelessness, and they eventually reached the edge of the trees.

If you had told Grayson he had died and gone to heaven, he would have believed it. The trees led to an open clearing, with the sun shining down on a cliff edge that had become a waterfall. The water at the base was a beautiful pale cerulean colour, smooth rocks surrounding it. The water flowed away from the pool over large stones, eroded after thousands of years of running water.

In a daze, Grayson dropped his bag at his feet, toed off his shoes and leaped into the water.

It wasn’t the smart thing to do, but he couldn’t care less. The clear water cooled his burning skin, and he let it wash over him, dunking his head below the surface. He knew he shouldn’t drink the water - that they should purify it by boiling it first, but he couldn’t stand the thought of another second without water. He drank from his cupped hands, relishing the feel of it permeating his body. He had to restrain himself by only having three handfuls of the water.

He heard a splash from behind and looked around - Ethan had jumped in too, except he had apparently taken the time to take off his clothes first.

Looking down at himself, Grayson saw that he’d now soaked all his clothes through, and quickly pulled off his shirt, socks, and trousers.

Once he’d put them out of reach of the water, Grayson moved back towards the centre of the pool, where it was deepest.

His eyes latched onto Ethan, who was splashing around in the water, diving and then coming back up. He was laughing as he did so, eyes closed, basking in the sun’s rays.

Grayson got hit with the thought that this is the first time he’d seen Ethan this carefree and happy in weeks, so he allowed himself a minute to watch Ethan’s tan body bobbing in and out of the water, sun catching on the water droplets clinging to his skin.

Eventually, Ethan calmed down enough to look around himself, spotting Grayson.

“Why are you just standing there watching me, you freak? C’mere,” he says with a playful, mischievous smile on his face.

Grayson wearily moved closer, knowing what was probably about to happen. His thoughts were confirmed when Ethan’s arm moved in a fast arc, sending a spray of water over to him. Grayson rubbed the water out of his eyes and smiled back. “Oh, it’s on!”

He retaliated by using both hands to send an even larger surge of water to Ethan, who tried to duck out of the way, but not fast enough. Ethan laughed uproariously as he sent a fresh wave of water towards Grayson. As they played on, Grayson seemed to be losing their fight, so he decided he wasn't above playing dirty, and when he was close enough, he jumped on Ethan, grabbing his shoulders and pushing him under the spray of the waterfall and then below the water’s surface.

Ethan seemingly hadn't been expecting this, and went down easy, quickly squirming away and breaking the water’s surface. He barely paused to catch his breath, yelling “Cheater!”, before pouncing on Grayson, trying to put his whole body weight onto Grayson’s shoulders and torso.

Grayson may have once been strong enough to stay upright from this, but as it was he got shoved under too. They continued like this for another minute, shoving at and splashing each other, all the while laughing.

They eventually slow down, panting heavily, and call a truce to their battle. Ethan laughed one last time, and moved towards Grayson, wrapping his arms around his waist, pulling Grayson into a hug.

Grayson was a little surprised, but responded by wrapping his arms around Ethan’s shoulders, chin resting on his back. He tried to ignore the fact that Ethan was naked, and he himself was only wearing boxers.

“Thank god I’m here with you - I wouldn’t have made it a week without you. Love you, bro,” Ethan mumbled.

Grayson’s chest tightened with emotions. “I love you too, man.”

Grayson closed his eyes tight and soaked in the pleasant feeling of the water, the sun, and Ethan’s skin against his.

Once they got out of the pool, they set immediately to building a fire a short distance away.

It took a long time for the water they got from the waterfall to start to boil, but they were exhausted from their impromptu water fight, so they just lay on the soft ground, drying off. Once the water was sufficiently boiled, it was an even harder task to not immediately drink it, and they both drank heavily from it the second it had cooled down enough to be safely drinkable. Even Ethan, with his apparent phobia of drinking warm water, drank deeply, groaning in relief.

Their spirits were much improved that night, and they even joked around while eating some of the bananas they had collected a while ago. When Grayson finally fell asleep, Ethan pressed against his side, it was with a smile on his face.

 

***

 

Having solved their water crisis, the twins go back to their original plan of trying to explore and map out as much of the island as possible. They talk about where there was the most resources, trying to decide where they could make their more permanent shelter. They both instantly agreed that it would be somewhere close to the waterfall, as it was the only reliable water source they had found.

They took the next day off, lounging by the waterfall, boiling water to stockpile, Ethan gathering some berries he found nearby.

It only took them 3 more days to fully explore the island - it turned out they had travelled more of it than they had expected in their search for water.

There was a certain accomplished feeling to having discovered the whole island - however it came with the heavy knowledge that they were definitively alone here.

Up until that point, Grayson had held out hope that they might still find other people, as unlikely as it was. He chose not to mention this particular insight to Ethan, partially ashamed of his own unfounded optimism, and he didn't want to get that look of pity from Ethan that was sure to appear, along with some mocking.

“Hey Gray?,” Ethan called, “What kind of shelter are we gonna build?”

Grayson paused, thinking for a moment. He had actually been giving this quite a bit of thought recently. He scratched the back of his head.

“Well, I was thinking we should make something similar to the shelter I made for our survival video - like a bamboo bed above the ground to avoid the snakes we saw a couple of times.”

Ethan nodded in agreement at this - they had both been a little shaken by the 2 snakes they had seen a while back. They had been able to easily avoid them, but ever since, they had been wary of sleeping on the ground.

Grayson paused a little, unsure of how to say the next bit of what he was thinking.

“Thing is,” he eventually continued, “The island’s got a lot of great resources, but we don’t really have any tools. I mean, we can go full caveman and sharpen some flint to make some axes and daggers, but it’ll be hard for us to get all the materials we need.”

He paused here again, but Ethan just watched him expectantly. “So.. it would probably be easier to make one big bed shelter rather than two smaller ones, if that’s alright with you.”

Grayson wasn’t even sure why he was so hung up on this point - they had been essentially sleeping in the same bed for the majority of their time here. But there was something about the act of consciously only making one bed for their permanent shelter that made it feel weightier, and Grayson didn’t know how to feel about it.

Ethan evidently wasn’t bothered about this point at all, as he just shrugged and said, “Yeah, sure.”

As he lay in bed that night, Grayson wondered whether he should feel guilty about how much he apparently craved sleeping in the same bed as Ethan, how just his physical presence made him feel calm. He definitely thought he should feel guilty about how much he enjoyed cuddling with Ethan, though he again justified that as a way to keep sane in the wilderness.

He told himself that he didn’t care about it as he gently slipped an arm around Ethan’s waist, pressing himself up against Ethan’s back.

He didn’t care at all.

 

***

 

Finding strong wood for the frame of their bed proved to be even more challenging than expected, but by the end of the day they had gathered together the wood, vines and leaves they would need for it.

Ethan had found some bamboo growing towards the eastern side of the island, so the next day they headed out to collect that and bring it back.

They found that their makeshift axe worked surprisingly well, though they had to keep repairing it when it broke off from their crafted handle.

Grayson was pleasantly surprised to find that Ethan was being cooperative instead of antagonistic, making helpful suggestions, and generally going along with Grayson’s ideas. Grayson couldn’t tell if this was because Ethan was tired of arguing over stuff, or if he genuinely thought Grayson was probably right about all of this survival stuff.

The more Grayson thought about it, the more he realised that over the past few weeks, they’d been coexisting easier than ever before. Obviously they’d always been best friends, and they’d always had each other’s backs, but the stuff Ethan would do used to drive Grayson up the wall.

Now, he just felt a vague fondness whenever Ethan said or did something stupid, and instead of yelling at him, he would smile or laugh. Grayson wondered if it was this place, this experience, that had managed to bring them even closer together. Grayson hadn’t previously thought that possible, but then again, he’d never gone so long without speaking to another human being except for Ethan as he had now.

As much as he obviously desperately wanted to get off the island, see their family, sleep in an actual bed, eat some pizza, watch TV, make another video - he also realised that there’s a certain tranquility to this place that he’s probably going to miss once they leave. At the very least, he’ll always have this place to thank for giving him this crazy experience.

All the worries in your life seem so insignificant when you’re forcibly detached from them in a place like this. His worries about filming videos, meeting fans, about what they should do, and how to act, he realised that none of that matters really. His worries about his appearance, about his sexuality - none of it mattered.

Well - he thought, looking over at Ethan, who was currently in charge of chopping and cleaning some of the bamboo sticks. He eyed Ethan’s bare back, sweaty from the exertion, tan skin shifting as he moved.

Ethan, just like himself, has gotten much leaner and more muscular than he’d ever been, and Grayson can’t help but think that it’s a good look on him.

Well, maybe his so-far-ignored attraction to men didn't matter. His apparent feelings for his twin brother, on the other hand, actually mattered a lot, though he wasn't ready to contemplate them in any serious way.

He watched as Ethan bent down, sorting through the bamboo sticks. These feelings, he was going to have to keep suppressing until they went away, or he died. Whichever came first.

Though, it bothered him that he couldn't trace his feelings back to any one specific moment - maybe it would make sense as a kind of adrenaline-fueled survival instinct, but his feelings towards his brother hadn't changed in any perceptible way.

They’d just been heightened, become more acute so that they’ve been brought into the forefront of his mind. This worried Grayson a lot. Because that meant that these feelings have been lying, dormant, inside him for longer than a couple of weeks.

That this is something that he’d been carrying around with him for a long time.

He suddenly remembered a winter day back in Jersey, when he must have been 11 or so. He had gotten sick from having a snowball fight with Ethan the day before, and was bedridden. His mom had come into his room with a mug of hot chocolate, a book in hand. He had asked her about the book and she told him that it was a poetry book, though he couldn’t remember the author now.

His mom had read him a few poems from it, and he couldn’t remember much of any of them, but there was one line that had for some reason stuck with him.

_He crawled beneath my skin when we were young, and he never had the good manners to leave._

That was Ethan for him - Ethan had been there for every significant stage of his life, by his side. A best friend he could always rely on, could always depend on. Maybe the person who Grayson was was all tangled up in Ethan too, to the point where some wires had crossed in his brain, making his deep platonic love for his brother turn into something more twisted.

“Grayson?,” Ethan said from directly in front of him, waving his blistered hands in front of Grayson’s face. “Dude are you okay? I called for you but you were all zoned out,” he said, concern in his voice.

Grayson quickly shook his head to clear it of his thoughts, putting on a forced small smile. “Oh sorry, I was just daydreaming about eating pizza.”

Ethan groaned at this, closing his eyes and throwing his head back. “Ugh, don’t even talk about that, just the word is making me salivate. God I could kill for some pizza right now. I could even go for some strawberry pizza right now, I swear to god.”

And just like that, they were back to normal - though Grayson couldn’t stop himself for staring just a few seconds too long at Ethan’s lips, his tanned shoulders, the swoop of his long hair.

He justified it to himself by saying that it was the one guilty pleasure he could allow himself - if he couldn’t have pizza, then at least he could have his small glances.

 

***

 

They finished setting up the shelter two days later. Grayson examined it carefully, making note of what they could change and improve, now that the base structure was in place.

Grayson had suggested that they use some of the scrap metal they had found earlier as part of the roof, to ensure that their shelter was waterproof. They had gathered together the rest of the items they had left on the original beach, bringing them to their shelter.

It had felt weird to abandon the beach that they had first landed on - Grayson just hoped that someone would eventually see their SOS sign and come looking for them. He had made another arrow out of rocks on that beach, pointing in what he hoped was the general direction of their shelter.

They spent the next couple of days making improvements to the area, making a large waterproof cover for their small area out of leaves, making a permanent fireplace with stones. Once they had done this, the boredom had begun to set in. Up until then they had always been striving towards something, struggling to overcome some obstacle. Now, they were mostly set.

They had to spend several hours every day sorting out the fire, water and food, but they weren’t in danger of running out any more. The nights seemed to get longer, and based on the crude calendar he was keeping, Grayson supposed that it must be winter, not that you could tell from this island, which only got a couple of degrees colder than normal.

Regardless, they made sure that the fireplace was close to the bed for both heat and protection from bugs, and they made a duvet out of clothes they probably wouldn’t use. Eventually, slipping into their bed beside Ethan, often spooning each other, became the norm for Grayson.

As he found his mind wandering more and more, he began looking at the books they had collected so long ago. While all of them had been completely waterlogged, they were still pretty readable, and he had a quick glance at them.

One was a Harry Potter book - Goblet of Fire. He wasn’t sure which one it was in the series, having never read them before, but he supposed that would be at least a little entertaining.

Another one of the books was some economics book. He set that one aside, opting to read that when he got bored of the others.

The last paperback book they had found was The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. By reading the blurb, Grayson figured out it was about Greek mythology, so he set that one aside for now as well, picking up the Goblet of Fire.

Ethan was currently off bathing, so Grayson figured he could read the book sitting on the ground beside the fireplace, the fire providing both light and warmth. He tried to read slowly, knowing they only had these three books for entertainment, but he quickly got sucked into it, and almost jumped when he heard Ethan say, “You’re reading?” incredulously from behind him.

Grayson turned to look at him. His hair was still slightly wet at the tips, but the grime that was usually ever-present on both of them was washed off.

Grayson just shrugged. “Yeah, I was bored so I thought I’d have a look at the books.”

Ethan nodded, sitting down beside Grayson. He seemed to hesitate a bit, and then turned to lie down, placing his head on Grayson’s lap.

Grayson was surprised at this, but shifted to accommodate him. Ethan closed his eyes, resting his entwined hands on his stomach. “I’m bored too. Read to me.”

Grayson raised an eyebrow at this, not that Ethan could see, but complied, starting at the beginning.

Eventually his arms got heavy from holding the book up, so he rested the book on the thigh that wasn’t being taken up by Ethan’s head, one hand holding it in place and flipping the pages. He dropped his other hand to Ethan’s hair, which was still slightly damp, and began playing with it as he read. Ethan made a noise of contentment at this, making Grayson smile.

Grayson read until his voice got hoarse, when Ethan’s heavy breathing indicated that he had fallen asleep. Grayson gently marked his place in the book, setting it aside.

He then went back to playing with Ethan’s hair, switching hands so that one played with his hair, and the other hand now spread open palmed on Ethan’s warm chest, over his heart. Grayson could feel the gentle, steady thumping rhythm. He wasn’t sure how long he let himself stay like that, looking down at Ethan’s peaceful face.

It took a lot of willpower to eventually wiggle out from underneath Ethan’s head. He bent down and picked up his brother with some difficulty, carrying him to the bed.

Ethan somehow only woke up as he was being gently placed on the bed, blinking open his eyes.

“Wassamatter?”, he mumbled out, clearly confused.

Grayson couldn’t help the goofy smile on his face. “We’re going to bed,” he said simply.

Ethan nodded, apparently satisfied with this answer, murmuring, “C’mere, it’s cold.”

That night, Grayson dreamt about warm, tan skin and big smiles, and woke up with a soaring, happy feeling that lasted him all day.

 

***

 

By some unspoken agreement, this had become their new routine. By day, they would fetch water, gather food, make changes to the shelter, fixing anything that got broken, gather wood and start up the daily fire.

The nights, however, were devoted to sitting by the roaring fireplace. Sometimes, Grayson read out loud, and sometimes it was Ethan. Sometimes they didn’t read a book at all, just talked quietly, Ethan leaning his head on Grayson’s shoulder, or Grayson resting his head on Ethan’s lap.

They had become more physically affectionate than ever before, often placing a hand on the other’s arm to get his attention, or patting on the back as thanks.

Grayson had always felt like he was the one initiating contact usually, but now Ethan reciprocated more and more, initiating hugs and cuddle sessions.

They were small touches, fleeting usually, but Grayson savoured each one, feeling the tingle of his skin where Ethan had dragged his fingers.

He knew, of course, that he shouldn’t be feeling electric sparks every time Ethan brushed shoulders with him, but was powerless to stop his feelings.

One night, they had gone to bed as normal, and Grayson had dreamed vividly.

He dreamt of Ethan, facing him, one hand on his shoulder, the other cupping the back of Grayson’s head. The look on Ethan’s face was intense, pupils blown wide. He licked his lips and leaned in.

Grayson could feel Ethan’s breath on his own lips. Ethan stopped just before they touched lips, teasing.

Instead, he placed kiss after gentle kiss on Grayson’s cheeks, moving to his jaw, mouthing and biting lightly at the skin there. Grayson moaned when Ethan fixed his attention to his throat and the sensitive skin under his ear, Ethan sucking hard on the skin, leaving marks.

Eventually Ethan let up his onslaught, and brought his head back up, pressing his forehead against Grayson’s.

Grayson was lost in brown, brown eyes staring into his own with an intensity he had never seen before.

This time, when Ethan leaned in, their lips connected softly, and a wave of emotion swept over Grayson.

He kissed back tentatively, basking in this moment, heart soaring. The kiss deepened, Ethan’s tongue licking his lips, slowly probing further. Grayson opened his mouth wider, hesitantly letting his tongue meet Ethan’s.

A burst of fireworks exploded in Grayson’s mind as they kissed. Ethan’s hands were a solid weight cupping Grayson’s face, but Ethan let one travel down his neck and chest, before moving it to the small of Grayson’s back, pulling them closer.

Grayson groaned as his hard-on pressed against Ethan’s, Grayson circling his hips to chase that good feeling, Ethan panting hard and groaning.

Grayson dropped his hands to Ethan’s hips, moving them to tug at the shorts, pulling them down and -

And Grayson woke up.

He took a second to realise where he was, and froze as soon as the realisation and shame hit. In his sleep he had spooned Ethan, but more than that, he had just been rubbing his erection against Ethan’s ass.

Grayson felt colour fill his face. He tried to listen to Ethan’s breathing, but it seemed to be normal.

He careful disentangled himself, getting out of the bed. He was still rock hard.

He padded carefully away from the shelter towards the woods, heading towards the waterfall, stopping by the trees surrounding the clearing.

His heart rate was still through the roof.

He had just had a wet dream about his twin brother.

Worse maybe, he had one of the most intense hard-on’s he had ever had, and all from some imaginary kissing and dry humping.

The more he thought about the dream, the harder he got, so he reluctantly pushed his hand into his briefs, taking hold of himself.

He tried to be as swift as possible, biting his lips to stop from groaning Ethan’s name when he came.

As he came to, he realised just how unbelievably fucked he was.

What was wrong with him? Why was he having these fucked up feelings for Ethan?

He could just about handle having these thoughts when awake - it was uncomfortable and it made his chest ache, but he could deal with it. He couldn’t control his dreams.

The worst thing wasn’t even the overwhelming shame, it was the pangs of heartache he felt from not being able to act on his desires. He could hug, but he couldn’t kiss. He could watch Ethan undress, but not slide his hands over his torso. Grayson was worried that nothing would be enough for him - that he would constantly be in a state of longing.

He took off his shirt, then trousers, until he was nude, and he then took a running leap into the pool. The chill of the morning river brought him back to the present, and out of his mind. He focussed on the water, the sun’s early beams of light. He resolved to not think about kisses, or hugs, or anything other than their survival.

It didn’t last long.

“There you are,” Ethan called out to him from the direction of their shelter. “I was worried about you - you weren’t there when I woke up.”

Grayson had to swallow down the lump that had formed in his throat at the sight of Ethan - he was still groggy with sleep, hair tousled adorably, squinting at Grayson with bleary eyes.

“Sorry. I just wanted a swim.” Grayson tried to keep his voice level.

Ethan just shrugged at this, and sat on the grass beside the pool. Grayson was a little surprised Ethan didn’t join him, but largely just tried to ignore him as he swam laps.

That night, Ethan faced him on the bed, wrapping his arms around Grayson’s back.

Grayson was a little surprised at this as if they cuddled, they usually spooned rather than facing each other, but he acquiesced and wrapped his arms around Ethan in turn.

“Goodnight Gray,” Ethan whispered, before leaning in slightly and placing a kiss on Grayson’s cheek.

Grayson froze, not knowing what to do, eventually managing a strained “Goodnight” in return, heart pounding and mind in overdrive. Ethan had already closed his eyes and was apparently close to sleep.

After that, small kisses became incorporated into their routine.

It started with Ethan, who would press a kiss to his shoulder, or to the back of his neck whenever he was moving past Grayson. A teasing kiss to his side when they were wrestling and play fighting.

Each time it happened, Grayson would blush furiously, not knowing how to respond.

He wasn’t an idiot, he knew that this wasn't usual twin behaviour. No matter how close they were, this was pushing a boundary that Grayson was scared to cross.

He wondered if the island had finally gotten to Ethan, driving him insane. His traitorous heart whispered another possibility to him, but he nipped that thought in the bud. No way - it was probably just a natural reaction to only being around one person for months.

It took a long time for Grayson to work up the courage to reciprocate the small kisses. He had wanted to ask about them hundreds of times, but always lost his nerve at the last second. Maybe he was worried about the answer - Ethan shrugging it off, saying he hadn’t even noticed he was doing it. If Ethan tried to just laugh it away, claiming it wasn’t a big deal, it would hurt more than Grayson wanted to admit.

It meant something to Grayson.

In the end, it happened almost subconsciously, Ethan arriving back from finding more wood, arms piled heavy with sticks and logs. Grayson just said, “Thanks man,” and pressed a small kiss to Ethan’s cheek. He hadn't even realised what he’d done until Ethan was saying, “You’re welcome,” and walking away.

After a long day of battling with himself over his emotions, he decided to become a little bit more bold after that, allowing himself a small kiss whenever the desire to do so became overwhelming. A goodnight kiss on the cheek. A kiss on a bare shoulder as they lay on the beach, soaking in the warmth of the sun. A kiss on the knee while Ethan was reading to him.

His days slowly filled with Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.

It was hard to stop thinking about him because he was always nearby, doing something distracting. He was frequently shirtless during the days, apparently unaware of how jaw-droppingly good he looked. After months of being shipwrecked, his hair had grown longer than it ever had been before, though it was apparently annoying him, seeing as how he kept trying to keep it from getting in his face.

Eventually, he must have decided that enough was enough, and approached Grayson with the pair of small blunt scissors they had, holding them out. His hair was still damp from when he’d washed it.

“Can you cut my hair?” Grayson raised his eyebrows, but agreed. Ethan took a seat on a large felled tree they’d been using as a bench, and Grayson stood behind him. He was a little unsure of where to start, so he decided to start from the bottom and work his way up, which he vaguely remembered their mom doing. Ethan was surprisingly quiet as he worked.

“You know, I’m a little surprised you’re letting me do this,” Grayson eventually said, when the silence felt too heavy for him, “You really hated it the last time we did this.”

Ethan chuckled lightly. “Yeah well, I guess I trust you not to fuck up this time. Which is probably dumb of me.”

He laughed as Grayson shoved him gently. Grayson tried to focus on the task at hand, snipping with precision. He ran his hand through Ethan’s hair, and Ethan responded to every minute push instantly.

In fact, Grayson was starting to wonder whether Ethan had fallen asleep, as when he glanced a look at his face, he saw his eyes were closed. He finished up the hair as best he could - he had cut it quite short, but he figured that would just help make sure he didn’t have to worry about it anytime soon.

He was about to pull his hands away, tell Ethan he was done, when he stopped, and decided to massage Ethan’s head and shoulders.

If Ethan asked him what he was doing, he would say that he could feel that Ethan had some tension there, and that he thought this would help. He would pretend that this wasn’t just a chance for him to run his hands over Ethan’s skin, plying the tough muscles.

Each touch sent a spark of electricity through Grayson. It seemed Ethan wasn’t entirely unaffected either - when Grayson rubbed a particularly sore spot, he let out a loud groan, eyes still closed. Grayson should have stopped then, but he didn’t, instead running his fingernails over Ethan’s scalp, pulling gently at the hair.

At one of the tugs that was slightly harder than the others, Ethan groaned again, this time deeper and lower. The sound shot straight to Grayson’s dick, which he was horrified to realise was half hard.

It was as if his head had been ducked in a bucket of cold water, and the reality of the situation set in again. He was essentially caressing his brother, pulling at his hair, and Ethan was moaning.

He stepped back from Ethan abruptly and cleared his throat. “Ah, your hair’s done.”

He started moving away, but snuck one last glance at Ethan first.

Ethan’s eyes were open now, and fixed on him. He had an intense look on his face that sent another shot of arousal through Grayson’s body. He didn’t say anything - just looked.

Grayson broke their eye contact, and hurried away.

It took a long time for his hard-on to die down.

He had to go to the beach, sit in the sand and take deep breaths. This was weird. This was a weird situation to be in. And Ethan was acting weird too. Grayson’s heartbeat sped up when he thought back to that look he had given, and tried to focus instead on his surroundings. It was evening before Grayson headed back to the camp.

Ethan was stoking the fire, and looked over cheerfully. Grayson was relieved to see that Ethan was acting seemingly normally, and as if nothing had happened.

“Hey, so you ran away before you could say anything about the haircut. So, how do I look?” Okay, so not entirely as if nothing had happened. Grayson wasn’t sure how to respond, and decided humour was probably the safest option to go with.

“Oh, it looks really bad - I’m definitely not cut out to be a hairdresser. You look like a hairy rat who got electrocuted.”

Ethan just smirks at him, laughing sarcastically. “Ha, ha, hilarious. You’ve just played yourself, idiot, you’re the one who has to look at me all day.”

While he said it in a joking tone, Grayson’s blood run cold at this statement. Had he been too obvious about his looking? Had Ethan caught on that he was acting different? Ethan just snorted at Grayson’s blank expression, muttering “Weirdo” fondly under his breath.

Or was Grayson overthinking things? He watched Ethan duck his head down, biting his lips as he carefully tied a shoelace around his shoe that was slowly falling apart.

Either way, Grayson had to try and stop these feelings - bury them deep down and forget about them.

It would do him no good to dwell on his feelings any more, especially as he could never act on them. He would have to deal with his pining by indulging in carefully calculated touches and kisses, and hope that that would satisfy the longing in his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, thought I'd upload slightly earlier than planned as I'm currently bedridden with a flu that was bad enough I had to be hospitalised lol... Hope you enjoy this update, things are really starting to heat up!
> 
> Just wanted to give a quick shoutout to dzinfection for the inspiration for putting quotes for chapters, and go check out their amazing Grethan fic if you haven't yet!
> 
> So I'll hopefully upload the last part of this trilogy next Sunday, and I'll be increasing the rating from mature to explicit for that chapter 👀👀


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How can I live without thee, how forego  
> Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,  
> To live again in these wild woods forlorn?  
> Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel  
> The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,  
> Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state  
> Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
> 
> However, I with thee have fixed my lot,  
> Consort with thee, death is to me as life;  
> So forcible within my heart I feel  
> The bond of nature draw me to my own,  
> My own in thee, for what thou art is mine;  
> Our state cannot be severed, we are one,  
> One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.  
> ― John Milton, Paradise Lost

Grayson lost count of how long they had been on the island. He had filled up his calendar, small pencil marks smudging and becoming indistinguishable. To be fair, looking at the tally marks just made him anxious at this point. All he knew was that they had been here for many months now, and the weather seemed to be changing again.

They mostly kept themselves entertained by travelling the island, mapping out every crook and crevice. This proved to be a good idea, as one day when Grayson was fixing the roof of their shelter, he heard Ethan running wildly, loudly yelling Grayson’s name.

Grayson wasn’t sure what went through his head - were they being rescued? Was Ethan hurt? Was he being pursued by some kind of wild animal? Perhaps the last thing he expecting was for Ethan to come to a sudden stop in front of him, bent over panting, mumbling something Grayson didn’t pick up.

“What?”

Ethan straightened up, still massively out of breath.

“There’s - turtles, by - by the beach, turtles, Grayson.”

Grayson's eyes widen at this, and Ethan grinned, before they both take off in the direction Ethan had come from. They slowed down as they approached the beach, and Ethan silently beckoned him towards part of the shore.

Sure enough, in a little rocky alcove, there was a family of turtles, partially swimming, partially walking along the sand. Grayson sat down on the beach, watching them in amazement. Ethan sat down beside him, something in his hands - some leaves he had picked up on the way back.

He grinned at Grayson, and delicately placed one on the ground in front of them, far enough away from them that the turtles wouldn’t be too afraid to go after it. Most of them ignored the twins and the leaf, but one of the smaller ones seemed to take an interest in it, and started slowly waddling over to them.

Grayson’s mouth hung open in disbelief as the turtle started happily chewing on the piece of leaf. Once it was almost finished with that one, Ethan placed another one next to it. The turtle didn’t seem afraid of him at all, and just started eating the next leaf. Grayson wondered if they were the first humans this turtle had come across.

Ethan was grinning widely throughout this whole experience, and turned to Grayson.

“Grayson, we have to name her, I love her so much.”

Grayson smiled in bemusement. “Why do you think it’s a ‘her’?”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “She’s our daughter, obviously, so she’s gotta be a girl. I’m thinking Dorothy. Dorothy the turtle.”

Grayson stared at Ethan as if he’d grown a second head, mind replaying ‘she’s our daughter’ on a loop. He couldn’t help but think that Ethan could have said that it’s his daughter, but he made the conscious choice to include Grayson. He cleared his throat.

“Wow, I’ve always wanted a little girl called Dorothy. It’s always been a great life goal of mine to raise someone with a grandma name,” he said, smirking at Ethan.

Ethan mimed cupping the turtles ears, even though it obviously didn’t have any. He shushed Grayson playfully.

“Don’t make fun of her! Is that any way to treat your daughter?”

Grayson lost it at this and dissolved into a fit of giggles, trying to be as quiet as possible so as to not disturb the turtles.

When he next looked at the turtle, it had come even closer to Ethan, who was holding out a leaf. He looked at Grayson with excited eyes when the turtle all but crawled into his hand.

“Dude, she loves me,” Ethan whispered to him. Grayson can’t help but smile at him, understanding exactly how Dorothy felt.

They watched the turtles for over an hour, until they started swimming back to the sea. They didn’t head back immediately though - they lied down on the sand, shoulders touching, soaking in the last warm rays of the sun.

Grayson’s mind was blank, except for the ever-present nagging words ‘our daughter’. He thought about a world where Ethan was in love with him too, where they could be together. Where he could wake Ethan up with kisses, and hold his hand in public. A world where they had a house with little adopted children with pigtails running around, calling them ‘daddy’ and ‘papa’.

His chest tightened the longer he thought about what it would be like to come home to a smiling Ethan, who greeted him by wrapping his arms around Grayson and kissing him deeply. He thought about what it would feel like to have Ethan whisper ‘I love you’ in between kisses. What would it be like, to be even closer with the closest person in his life, closer than they should be, considering who they were to each other?

Grayson took a few deep breaths to calm himself. He was horrified to feel the prick of oncoming tears in his eyes. He won’t ever have that, he knew. But - he risked a glance at Ethan beside him, the sun hitting his face, making him look ethereal. Their bond had changed, and they were closer than ever. He thought about the small kisses they’d been sharing, and didn’t know what they meant - because they couldn’t possibly mean what he hoped they meant.

Despite this, he decided to take a chance, and slowly moved his hand onto Ethan’s. When Ethan didn’t immediately protest, he intertwined their fingers. His heart pounded, waiting for Ethan to say something, or to yank his hand away. Grayson felt prickly under his skin, hot and tense. When no reaction came, he started wondering if Ethan was asleep, but then he felt Ethan squeeze his hand lightly, not letting go.

Grayson leant back, eyes closed, and smiled.

 

***

 

Grayson became a little braver after that - he no longer held back when he wanted to touch Ethan’s arm, hold his hand, kiss the knob of Ethan’s spine. He knew this wasn’t normal, that something had changed between them. He shouldn’t feel butterflies in his stomach whenever Ethan’s fingers grazed his skin. This should disgust him, society-ingrained values telling him that wanting to kiss his twin was wrong. But, it was increasingly hard to care about societal norms here, where they only had their own feelings to go by, and Grayson couldn’t stop the soaring of his heart every time Ethan reciprocated with his own little touches.

Eye contact was now charged to the point where Grayson always had to break it and go do something to take his mind off of the heat he felt under his skin.

Perhaps the worst thing was that they had never spoken about it, the metaphorical elephant in the room enormous, almost the size of the island itself, unavoidable and ever-present. Grayson knew he was a coward for not talking about it, for hoping that Ethan would be the one to break their silence over this.

Ethan was unfathomable - it was strange how much his attitude towards Grayson had changed compared to before the island. They no longer fought, or at least not as seriously as they used to - it was more well-meaning bickering than actual hurt feelings. They seemed to have found some kind of harmony that had eluded them for 19 years.

But they didn’t talk about it.

Grayson had lost track of how long they had been on the island. He supposed it must have been a year by now, maybe more. It was weird to think that they were probably 20, birthday passed without them being aware of it.

Grayson was pulled out of his thoughts as they were wandering to the south of the island to collect more bananas, when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. The movement came from near where Ethan was walking, seemingly not paying attention to his surroundings.

It was somewhere on the ground, and by the time he realised what it was, it was too late. Ethan took a step too close to it, and the snake reared back and bit him on the leg, hard. Ethan cried out in pain, leg going out from under him.

Grayson’s blood ran cold, and he chased the snake away before rushing to Ethan’s side. Ethan was breathing hard, wincing.

“Ethan? Oh my god, Ethan?” Grayson babbled, moving to try to look at Ethan’s leg.

“Gray, ugh, it really stings, shit, what was that?”

“It was a snake,” Grayson choked out.

Ethan paled visibly at this, clutching his leg in pain.

“A snake?” He looked like he was about to say something else, but either was in too much pain or lost his train of thought.

Grayson’s heart was pounding violently.

“I don’t know. I don’t - how do you feel?”

Ethan grimaced. His face has lost some colour, and as Grayson gingerly felt his leg, it felt clammy and colder than it should. The area around the snake bit was red, and looked like it was starting to swell.

“Dizzy.”

Grayson didn’t know much about snake bites, but he knew that that wasn’t a good sign. He frantically tried to think of everything he knew about venomous snakes - he knew that you weren’t meant to try and suck the poison out, or to cut off the blood flow to the area, as those were just myths.

He figured the best thing to do would be to try and bring Ethan back to camp, where he could lie down on the bed and not move.

“Ethan, can you walk?”

Ethan didn’t respond. In fact, it looked as though he didn’t even hear the question. Grayson tried to fight back his panic, and decided to carry Ethan back to camp, careful to not jostle his leg too much. Ethan barely stirred or reacted to being lifted up, and didn’t say anything as Grayson carried him.

Once they reached the camp, Grayson gingerly laid Ethan down. There was a sheen of sweat over Ethan’s forehead, and his eyes were still closed. The redness around the bite wound had spread, and the leg had definitely swelled up. Grayson carefully took off Ethan’s shoe and sock, in case the swelling went further down.

“Ethan? Ethan can you hear me?”

When Ethan didn’t respond, Grayson cursed loudly, pacing near the bed. Ethan’s breathing still sounded laboured, as if he was having trouble getting the air in. Had his throat swelled? What should he do?

Eventually he sat by the bed, watching Ethan carefully for any signs of movement or change. He didn’t know how many hours he sat there, but when it reached night time and Ethan still hadn’t woken up, and his breathing was still harsh, and his skin was red and fever hot, Grayson broke down.

It happened very abruptly, one second he was looking at Ethan, and the next he could barely see for the tears in his eyes. He shakily breathed out a sob, abdomen shaking with the force of his hysteria, his throat tightening.

What if Ethan didn’t wake up? What if he died? What if -

It took a long time for the shaking sobs to stop, and longer still for the tears to stop. By the end of the night, he was weary, bone tired and anxious. He wanted nothing more than to hold Ethan, but he thought it was probably best to not jostle him as much as possible.

He slept fitfully on the ground beside the bed, checking on Ethan throughout the night, but his condition didn’t change. His skin was hot to the touch, and his heartbeat was pounding. By the time morning came around, Grayson could feel the hysteria coming on again. He couldn’t lose Ethan - not now, not ever. The thought of having to live his entire life without his twin by his side was unthinkable.

He kept trying to wake Ethan up, but he didn’t move. In fact, he moved so little that the only indication that he was still alive was the wheezing of his breathing. His skin still felt feverish, though the redness seemed to have stopped spreading. He worried about how Ethan hadn’t drank any water in 20 hours.

Grayson stayed by Ethan’s bedside the whole day, checking on him, but mostly sitting helplessly by his side. Occasionally Ethan showed slight signs of awareness, one time opening his eyes blearily, though he still didn’t respond to any of Grayson’s talking. Towards the evening, he was awake enough that Grayson managed to make him drink some water, but he just muttered nonsense, and was soon back asleep, dozing fitfully. Grayson didn’t know what to do.

By nighttime, he decided to read out loud to Ethan, partially as a way to keep himself busy, and partially out of hope that Ethan would wake up, respond to it. He chose The Song of Achilles - they had both read through it before, and had been reading it for the second time before this all had happened.

The first time they had read the book, Grayson remembered the thrill he had felt at the revelation that it was a gay love story, how he felt exhilarated by reading this with Ethan, who showed no outwards signs of being affected by it.

Grayson began to read out loud. His voice was hoarse and it shook slightly, but he persevered. The longer he read it, the more he realised that this was a bad choice, as the book reflected his situation too closely.

When he got to the line ‘ _He is half my soul, as the poets say_ ,’ Grayson had to stop reading, as his tears were blurring the text beyond comprehension. He looked at Ethan, lying still on their bed, and thought about how Ethan was half his soul, how Ethan defined who Grayson was.

It was maybe this revelation, that he could soon lose that which was most important to him, that led him to start speaking.

“Ethan, I - just, please wake up. Please wake up. If not for yourself, then for me. I - I love you Ethan. And not just in a brotherly way. You’re half of my soul. Please, E. I - I’m so in love with you it hurts to breathe sometimes. I couldn’t live without you. Please.”

The longer he spoke, the worse his crying got, until he had to stop. He hadn’t said everything he wanted to say. He would probably never be able to say everything he wanted to say to Ethan - the feelings were too large to be put into words, they couldn’t be trivialised.

Grayson watched Ethan. His eyes were still closed, but his hand twitched slightly at his side. Grayson got up from his uncomfortable position, and knelt by the bed, pushing Ethan’s hair off off his damp, burning forehead. He rested his hand against the side of Ethan’s face.

Grayson wondered if this was his punishment for falling in love with his twin - if there was a vengeful God out there, mocking him for coming so close to everything he had ever wanted, and then snatching it out from under him.

He leaned down slowly, carefully, until his face hovered an inch above Ethan’s. He closed the distance, placing a single kiss to Ethan’s dry and warm lips. He wondered if he believed in the fairytale of true love’s first kiss curing all maladies and curses. He supposed not, that he just needed to have this one kiss, because in all likelihood he would never be allowed another.

He settled back onto the ground. Ethan didn’t stir. Grayson didn’t sleep that night.

Come morning, Ethan appeared to be slightly more lucid - Grayson had managed to get him to drink some more water, and he said a couple of words, though Grayson couldn’t understand what they were, given how slurred he was speaking.

The redness was still there, but the swelling had gone down slightly. Grayson started to feel cautiously optimistic that Ethan would get better, but he tried to hide the optimism deep inside, not wanting to jinx Ethan’s recovery.

By evening, Ethan was the most coherent he had been since being bitten, asking about what had happened to him. He even managed to eat some of the food Grayson gave him.

Grayson watched, concerned, as Ethan took a few more sips of water before passing the bottle back to Grayson.

“How do you feel, E?”

“It’s like, uhh, I’m still really dizzy and I feel like I’m about to throw up, and my leg hurts so much it’s unreal.”

Grayson nodded, lump forming in his throat. He knew he had to say something, he had been through too much these past few days to not say anything.

“Bro, I just. I love you man, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Ethan smiled at him, eyes hooded. “I love you too man, and you won’t get rid of me that easy, I’m gonna be at your side bothering you until we’re old and decrepit.”

Grayson knew Ethan was just trying to lighten the mood, but he grabbed onto Ethan’s hand anyway.

“Promise?”

Ethan must have sensed the sincerity and desperation in his voice, because he just said “I promise”, before laying back down.

It was a long while before Ethan felt well enough to move. He’d been able to drink water and eat, though he still only ate small amounts because of the residual nausea he felt. His skin was red and itchy around the bite, but at least the swelling had disappeared.

Ethan was pretty shaky on his feet, and couldn’t put much weight on his injured leg, though this slowly got better over time, too. By the next week, he was able walk short distances by himself. Grayson no longer worried about Ethan dying because of the bite.

Now, he just worried about how he needed to tell Ethan the truth about his feelings. Having said them out loud once had felt like a breath of fresh air, and he knew Ethan deserved to know. But he was worried about Ethan’s reaction to his admittance.

They were close enough that Grayson was reasonably sure Ethan wouldn’t abandon him entirely, but the idea that hurt him the most was Ethan being as accepting as he could of Grayson’s feelings, but pulling away slowly. No more small touches, small kisses, no more easy laughter. What if his feelings created a tension that would never go away?

He sat by the fireplace, thinking of all the things that could go wrong, sneaking glances at Ethan, who was a few feet away, reading one of the books. Upon a closer look, Grayson saw that it was The Song of Achilles, and he felt his nerves like a steel weight in his stomach.

“He is half my soul, as the poets say,” Ethan read aloud, not looking up.

Grayson’s heart stopped, and he looked over at Ethan, who was watching him now. Without breaking eye contact, he closed the book and put it down.

“I want to tell you about what happened to me when I was sick.”

He seemingly waited for some response from Grayson, who just nodded his head in encouragement, his tongue a dead weight in his mouth.

“I mostly dreamed I think, it’s all kind of a blur to be honest, I was really out of it. It’s hard to tell what was real and what was fake. I had this one dream where I was walking through an endless ocean looking for you, but I could never find you. At some point I dreamt about you stroking my hair - not sure if that one’s real or not.”

He paused for a moment, looking up from the ground where he’d been staring, and fixing his gaze on Grayson.

“In another dream I remember hearing your voice, you were reading a story, but you started crying before you could finish it, and you told me that you loved me - that you were in love with me. And then - you kissed me. That one felt the most dreamlike, the most unreal.”

The silence was crushing. Grayson’s mind moved frantically from thought to thought. Should he deny it? Or tell the truth? Was this Ethan’s way of saying they could never happen?

Ethan continued, breaking Grayson out of his thoughts.

“I know it’s wrong, but the more I think about it, the more I want it to not be a dream.”

The vulnerability in Ethan’s voice is what finally gave Grayson the courage to take the leap.

“I - Ethan, that happened. I was so sure that you were dying, and that I would never get to tell you about how much I love you, how - how I’m in love with you. But I do. Love you, I mean - God, you’re literally everything to me.”

The relief he felt after finally saying it out loud was instantaneous. Ethan grinned widely at him.

“Come here,” he beckoned towards himself.

“What? Why?” Grayson frowned.

“C’mon, just do it, I can’t move with my leg right now.”

Grayson obediently got up and moved closer to Ethan, kneeling down when Ethan bid him closer. Ethan raised both arms, cupping Grayson’s face tenderly, still grinning.

“I’m in love with you too.” It’s both a confession and a promise. In the end, it was Ethan who dragged Grayson’s face closer, and then they were kissing.

All of Grayson’s nerves lit alight with sensations, and he returned the kiss with as much love and affection as he could muster, their large smiles almost disrupting the kiss. Objectively, he knew this was wrong and it shouldn’t have happened, but he couldn’t deny how it felt like everything had finally slotted into place, a jigsaw puzzle finally complete.

Eventually they broke away, both giddy with relief and joy, smiles still on their faces.

Grayson leaned back in and kissed him again, savouring every second. This kiss dragged on longer, lips dragging against each other lazily, and Grayson opened his mouth, letting in Ethan’s roaming tongue and meeting it with his own. Grayson’s hands mapped out Ethan’s back, fingertips tingling. The wet heat was making him feel lightheaded. His skin tingled at every point of contact that they had, Grayson’s leg in between Ethan’s, his arms wrapped around Ethan’s back.

By the time this kiss ended, they were both panting. Ethan’s eyes were blown wide, a faint blush along his cheeks. He looked beautiful. Grayson wanted to kiss him, so he did, peppering little kisses on Ethan’s face - cheek, nose, jaw. Ethan laughed at this, eyes scrunched up adorably. When Grayson let up, he opened them again, and Grayson’s heart soared at the fond expression on Ethan’s face.

“Gray, I love you so much.”

Grayson couldn’t have stopped the wide smile from appearing on his face had he wanted to, or the blush that covered his cheeks.

“I love you too, E.”

They fall asleep that night entangled in each other, warm and happy.

Grayson woke up before Ethan, as usual. Typically, he’d leave their bed and start his day, but he woke up with Ethan lying partially on top of him, arm and leg thrown over his side. He could still wiggle out if he wanted, but he found that he was comfortable where he was. He put his hand on the back of Ethan’s head where it rested on his chest, playing with the short curls. He could feel every breath that Ethan let out, fanning across his skin, and it made goosebumps appear on his arm.

It was strange to think that last night happened - he finally confessed his feelings and Ethan reciprocated. It felt almost too good to be true, like his mind was playing tricks on him. He got flustered thinking about how Ethan kissed him the previous night, had looked at him earnestly and told Grayson he loved him.

It was a lot to process. Was he dating his brother now? While he was lost in thought, he almost didn’t realise that Ethan’s breathing had quickened, only noticing when Ethan let out a slight moan, rubbing himself against Grayson’s leg.

As soon as he realised what was happening, all of Grayson’s blood travelled south immediately. The feeling of Ethan’s swelling dick against his hip was intense even through their clothing. Ethan groaned again, hips moving slightly harder. This caused Grayson to let out an involuntary moan, gripping onto Ethan’s hair and the back of his shirt.

Just as he was about to wake Ethan up, Ethan mumbled something into Grayson’s neck - he couldn’t make out what it was at first, but eventually he realised that Ethan was muttering “Grayson, ah, Gray, Gray” on repeat.

Grayson was so hard he could barely think anymore, and he shook Ethan hard. “Ethan, dude wake up, Ethan, wake up so I can kiss you already.”

Eventually, Ethan raised his head, murmuring a groggy, “What?”

Grayson barely let him finish the word before he leaned in to kiss him, not even caring about their morning breath. Ethan was somewhat slow on the uptake, but soon responded enthusiastically, tilting his head to get a better angle.

This kiss was more urgent than the ones the previous night had been, more sloppy. Grayson groaned loudly when Ethan sucked on his lower lip, biting it none too gently.

Ethan’s hands roamed all over Grayson’s chest, tugging at the bottom of his shirt. They both sat up, and Grayson shucked the shirt off, waiting impatiently for Ethan to take his off as well. As soon as he had, they crashed back together. Grayson couldn’t hold back the groan he let out from their bare skin connecting. It was like white fire, leaving scorch marks along his skin.

He wondered if it was possible to get drunk on this sensation alone, hands exploring curves, mouths on tan skin. Ethan’s hands wandered to Grayson’s ass, and he squeezed appreciatively, pulling Grayson closer. They both moaned at the feeling of their hard-ons pushing up against each other, Ethan bucking involuntarily.

Grayson was lost in a world of sensation, licking and biting every inch of skin he could reach, Ethan clawing at his back, head thrown back, never letting up the string of groaned expletives, repeating Grayson’s name as if it were holy to him.

Grayson had to pull back eventually, panting hard, lips red and swollen. Ethan’s eyes fixed onto them, his own eyes clouded over with lust. Grayson was addicted to seeing that look directed at him. Ethan leaned in, stealing a gentle kiss that belied none of the amped up tension he was feeling.

Pulling away, Ethan made eye contact with him, intense gaze boring into Grayson’s soul. He tugged at Grayson’s shorts, looking down briefly and then back up, a question on his face. Grayson hesitated for just a moment, before awkwardly pulling them, and his underwear, down. He sat back, trying not to feel vulnerable with Ethan’s gaze on him. They had seen each other naked countless times of course, but never like this, never with such intent, never with the desire to taste, to feel.

When Ethan didn’t move, Grayson turned his attention to Ethan’s shorts, and they both took them off, mindful of Ethan’s injured leg. Grayson couldn’t keep himself from staring - Ethan’s cock was swollen, slightly shorter, but thicker than his. He was overwhelmed by his desire to feel it in his hand, to taste it, to feel it riding into him, taking him apart bit by bit.

Ethan seemed to finally snap out of his haze, and he moved to crawl on top on Grayson. Grayson nearly came from the first brush of Ethan’s cock against his, letting out a long moan that Ethan interrupted, kissing him deeply and wetly, tongues clashing.

Grayson bucked up, trying to seek that friction again. Fireworks exploded behind his closed eyes and he swore that he could come just from this, like some sex-crazed teenager. Grayson had slept with a fair amount of people, but none of those girls had ever made him lose all sense of thought, abandoned to the intoxicating sensations of Ethan’s body against his.

Ethan pulled away from the kiss - he was a complete mess, lips red, hair in disarray, and Grayson wanted nothing more than to debauch him even further.

“Gray? Oh my god, Gray, can I, please,” he babbled incomprehensibly.

Grayson raised an eyebrow, “Can you what?”

“Can I suck you off?”

Grayson nearly came from that sentence alone.

“Oh my god, E, yes, yes, yes, please.” Grayson wasn’t even aware of what he was saying anymore, too caught up in Ethan travelling down his body, pressing kisses to his chest, nipples, stomach.

He hovered over Grayson’s dick, maintaining eye contact, reaching out and wrapping his hand around the base. Grayson almost felt embarrassed about the whine that came out of his mouth, but in the next second he was too preoccupied with how Ethan was lowering his head, tentatively licking at the head of his cock.

He then took the rest of the tip into his mouth, sucking lightly. Grayson was sweating with the effort of staying still - the view was almost as intoxicating as the sensations. He was sure that he would remember this moment for the rest of his life, would see this image every time he closed his eyes. Ethan continued to take more of him into his mouth, alternating between licking and sucking, occasionally looking up at Grayson through his lashes.

Grayson was a mess, repeating Ethan’s name, feeling his orgasm building.

“Ah, Ethan, I’m gonna come,” he warned, but Ethan didn’t pull off, and instead renewed his vigour, stroking with his hand and sucking, taking him deeper. This was too much to bear, and Grayson convulsed, coming down Ethan’s throat, who gagged slightly but caught as much as he could, swallowing. He pulled off of Grayson’s dick, sitting back and wiping his mouth and chin clean with the back of his hand.

“You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” Ethan chuckled.

Grayson furrowed his eyebrows, not expecting this line of conversation.

“How long?” Grayson inquired, curious. He was intimately aware of his feelings for Ethan, but Ethan’s for him were a complete mystery to him.

Ethan hesitated a little, before saying, “A while. Years.”

Grayson’s mouth dropped at this admission. Years? They could have been doing this for years? Grayson sat up, reaching for Ethan, grabbing his still leaking dick in his hand.

“God,” Grayson sighed, stroking Ethan, “I can’t believe it’s taken us this long - I’ve wanted you for years too.”

Ethan was watching him with rapt eyes, moaning when Grayson twisted his wrist just so.

“Anything else you’ve been wanting to do?” Grayson inquired bashfully, desperate to hear the answer.

Ethan blushed slightly, having to close his eyes, groaning.

“Argh, God, so many things, Grayson.”

“Tell me,” Grayson asked gently - his curiosity was eating him alive, but he also didn’t want to make Ethan uncomfortable. “Please?”

Ethan sighed as if this is his weakness. “I - just. Everything. I want everything. Kissing you, blowing you, you blowing me, I - my fingers opening you up, fucking you slow and hard, you fucking me. I want all of it, if you’ll let me have it.”

The vulnerability in Ethan’s voice dazed him, and he reached over to Ethan with his free hand, cupping his face.

“Ethan. Ethan, open your eyes.”

Ethan did so reluctantly, scared of what he would see, which turned out to be Grayson with a look of absolute adoration, love and lust on his face.

“God, Ethan, I want that too - all of it. I want all of you.”

Ethan was overwhelmed with sensation, so he pulled Grayson's head close and kissed him, trying to convey the depth of his emotions through the swipe of his tongue, the bite of his lips. He groaned when Grayson sped up his hand on Ethan’s dick.

Seeming to realise Ethan was so very close, Grayson pulled back slightly.

“I love you, E,” he whispered into Ethan’s mouth. To Ethan’s embarrassment, it was this heartfelt statement that pushed him over the edge, yelling Grayson’s name.

They collapsed into a heap of post-coital bliss, Grayson playing with Ethan’s hair again. Ethan leaned over to kiss him again, unable to stop the smile on his face. “I love you too, Gray.”

 

***

 

After that, makeout sessions and orgasms worm their way into their routine, and Grayson never stopped feeling the thrill of excitement, joy and love he felt whenever Ethan kissed him gently, or winked at him, or shouted his name in bliss.

He was worried that this deep passion would boil over, or that they would get into some big fight and it will ruin everything, but it doesn’t happen. The next few months are the happiest of Grayson’s life, and he started thinking that he could spend the rest of his life like this, here on this island, Ethan a constant presence by his side. He still missed home desperately, but he’d now managed to find a new home with Ethan, in the crook of his neck, the curve of his smile, the dip of his lower back.

He thought back to what he said in a video once, about how there were no people in the world who were closer than he is to Ethan. That was true now more so than ever before, both physically and emotionally. Ethan started opening up to him about his worries and fears, no longer feeling the need to keep his guard up all the time. The subtle love Grayson felt at every absent-minded kiss reminded him of just how lucky he was to be able to be with his soulmate.

He had never before given much thought to the idea of soulmates, but he wasn’t sure how else to describe the bond they have, two very different puzzle pieces that somehow manage to fit together perfectly, two halves of a whole.

The months flew by with them keeping themselves occupied, learning each other in new and amazing ways. Grayson learned that he loved to be methodically stretched open by Ethan’s fingers, Ethan perpetually concerned about hurting him. The burn from Ethan’s cock in him is transcendental, and he could never get enough of how Ethan lost all self control whenever they did this, chanting Grayson’s name. He also found out he loves how Ethan begs him for his cock, splayed out on his back, eager and ready.

It took Grayson by surprise when he realised they must have been on this island for at least two years now. He could see the changes in Ethan, he was broader and more well defined than ever before, though he still couldn’t grow a proper beard. His skin was a golden colour from days spent relaxing on the shoreline, and Grayson could barely resist the temptation of running his hands along Ethan’s skin all day.

One night, Ethan was quieter than usual, gazing into the fire. Grayson wanted to ask what was wrong, but he had learned that it was best to let Ethan wait until he was ready to articulate whatever thought has been driving around in circles in his head. If you cut him off prematurely, he would sulk and end up not saying anything. Grayson found he always wanted to hear what Ethan had to say.

“Gray, do you ever wonder if this is all some weird fluke?” He said eventually, staring into the fire, the blaze reflected in his eyes.

Grayson frowned. “What do you mean?”

Ethan fiddled with the swiss army knife in his hands, still not looking at Grayson.

“Well it’s just, what we have, doesn’t it seem almost too good to be true? Like, I don’t know, it’s only happening because we’re on this island? I don’t think I would ever have acted on my feelings if it weren’t for this place - I didn’t even really know what they were.”

Grayson was momentarily speechless, trying to parse Ethan’s words.

“What are you saying exactly?”

Ethan paused slightly, considering. “I guess I’m saying... if we get off this island, do you think we’ll still feel the same? Or - can this, our relationship, only survive while we’re here?”

Grayson frowned even deeper at this confession, though he got where Ethan was coming from. In fact, he’d sometimes wondered if maybe he did actually die in that plane crash, and this is just an elaborate heaven created just for him.

Grayson didn’t know if this island was real - it felt real so it probably was. But what he didn’t doubt was depth of his own feelings, the inevitability of their bond.

He settled for gently muttering, “Ethan… I’ve been in love with you since we were kids, probably. We’ve only ever had each other, and you were always there with me, at my side during the hardest times. Leaving this island isn’t going to change how I feel - I’m always going to be in love with you.”

Grayson started to feel tears starting to prick at the corner of his eyes, and he blinked several times to will them away, staring into the fire. He felt Ethan lay a gentle hand on his shoulder, and looked over at him.

The look on Ethan’s face is inscrutable, a soft expression Grayson used to have difficulty placing, but he thought he knew what it was now. Love.

Ethan chuckled slightly, maybe his attempt at lightening the mood. “Oh you big sap, you.” He leaned close, their noses almost touching.

“I’ll always love you too,” Ethan whispered in a low tone, a promise, hazel-brown eyes locked onto Grayson's, before leaning in the rest of the way, planting a soft and gentle kiss on Grayson’s lips. He pulled back slightly, tilting his head.

“What about other people? We can’t exactly tell the world we’re dating.”

This made Grayson pause slightly. One of the main things that had bothered him when he had first started realising his feelings for Ethan was what other people would say if they found out. Strangely enough, the thought didn’t really worry him anymore.

“Screw other people. They don’t have to know anything - we know what we are to each other, and that’s enough for me.”

Ethan smiled again at this, looking at Grayson fondly. He murmured, “It’s enough for me too,” before leaning in and kissing him soft and sweet again.

Grayson spent the rest of the day in a haze of Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.

 

***

 

In the end, they struggled to recognise the noise for what it was.

It started with a far off thrumming noise, almost like the wings of a giant hummingbird, but getting louder and closer. Grayson looked at Ethan, confused, but Ethan just shrugged at him. It took a few more moments for it to click - it was the sound of a helicopter.

Ethan’s eyes widened as he came to the same realisation. They both instantly dropped the wood they were collecting and raced to the beach. Grayson’s heart was beating so hard he couldn’t hear anything over the rush of noise in his ears.

It had been so long since he’d last felt hopeful about being rescued, and the feeling rushed back to him with a start. They were running so carelessly Grayson nearly barrelled into a tree, dodging out of the way at the last possible second.

They emerged onto the beach, and the sound of the wings was almost deafeningly loud now, and Grayson realised they had emerged right next to the spot where they had first landed on the island. The old SOS sign they had made was still visible, though partially covered in sand, some of the rocks swept away. It had been a long time since they had been here.

The sun was almost blinding, but Grayson could make out the shape of a helicopter to the south, and it was getting closer. It must see them.

He looked over at Ethan, suddenly afraid. It was a strange emotion to feel, considering how long they had both dreamt of being rescued. He supposed he had grown to love the equilibrium they had reached here, and the incoming helicopter just brought uncertainty.

What would their lives be like once they were back? Would they be able to remain together? Would they realise their feelings were nothing but Stockholm Syndrome, tying them together because of the horror of being marooned?

As if sensing his worries, Ethan stepped deliberately closer to Grayson, reaching out to hold his hand. He held on, strong and firm, and looked his twin in the eyes.

“Together,” Ethan murmured, just for him.

Grayson smiled, and they walked forwards together, ready to greet their future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank everyone who's stuck through with this fic - I appreciate each and every one of you! Thank you for all the love!!


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